I know, not exactly shocking to learn that a Hollywood actor, especially Matt Damon, said something stupid. But this was so stupid that it’s worthy of comment.
According to the Huffington Post, in an appearance on the new Piers Morgan show on CNN, Damon said "… the idea that we’re testing kids and we’re tying teachers’ salaries to how kids are performing on tests, that kind of mechanized thinking has nothing to do with higher order. We’re training them, not teaching them.”
Only in Hollywood would someone object to the use of tests to determine what, and how much, kids are learning. My recollection is that they’ve been in use for a few centuries or so. As awful as they may be for someone steeped in liberalism, it’s a little hard to figure out how better to determine classroom success.
By the way, this bit of wisdom from Damon was delivered while he was bashing Obama. Apparently, even Barack is too demanding of America’s teachers.
Comments 1
Damon, like the rest of the Hollywood left collective, hasn’t a clue that learning facts is absolutely indispensable to “higher order” thinking.
“Memorization is not the antithesis of creativity; it is absolutely indispensable to creativity. Creative insights come at odd and unpredictable moments, not when you have all the references spread out on the table in front of you. You can’t possibly hope to have creative insights unless you have memorized all the relevant information. And you can’t hope to have really creative insights unless you have memorized a vast amount of information, because you have no way of knowing what might turn out to be useful.”