And to think, if I was at the University of California, Berkeley, I could be getting college credit for this. Found, like so much else, through Boing Boing.
I am, according to NPR’s “Which Newsmaker are You” quiz, a Generic Talking Head. Well that’s a fine how-do-ya-do.
In today’s Salon, Amy Weivoda writes:
We all understood that the kids behind the tests were real, and we never intentionally tried to screw them. But discomfort, resentment and tedium no doubt caused our minds to wander and our scores to get sloppy. Subtle pressure from our co-workers, or open pressure from our managers, caused us to rush through the tests. We were underpaid and poorly trained and none of us was qualified to be scoring those kids.
Great. Like I needed more reason to be pissed off at standardized tests.
A child free from the guilt of ownership and the burden of economic competition will grow up with the will to do what needs doing and the capacity for joy in doing it. It is useless work that darkens the heart. The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skillful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well — this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection, and sociality as a whole.
— Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
— Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed