Our Results-Driven, Testing Culture

Lyn Lesch advocates that learning cannot be measured by empirical results like testing and grading. As the founder of Chicago's The Children's School, Lesch didn't give grades or submit students to standardized testing_such conditions may seem blasphemous to most educators, but the results spoke for themselves. Without the high-stakes pressure of results, accountability, and testing, students were able to take a more active role in their education. With reduced stress on performance, students can develop an openness to the material and link learning to their own personal experience. If the status quo goes unchanged, Lesch argues that students will be schooled in a disembodied, dull manner that prevents true learning and comprehension. To avoid this, Lesch describes how education should revolve around each student's personal experience (i.e., linking school with what matters to individual students). Perhaps more than anything, this book is intended to be a discussion point for developing a healthy relationship between personal experience and academic learning.

This book is intended to be a discussion point for how to develop a healthy relationship between personal experience and academic learning—which in light of our current results driven, testing culture, is the real benefit of the book.

Lyn Lesch, a classroom teacher for 24 years, founded and directed The Children's' School in Evanston, Illinois from 1991 to 2003. The school, an alternative school for children ages 6 to 14, received widespread media attention in Chicago as a unique approach to education. Since retiring from The Children's School, Lyn is now a full-time education writer.