“Will this be on the test?”
There, in six words, is one of the worst questions any educator can hear.
It lays bare, in a simple question, the motivations, the structures and the flaws of the traditional educational paradigm. The test is a stick, the grade (and the degree) are the carrot, and compliance is the process.
I just published a long Medium post about how this mindset was the unseen standard as educators moved online, and why it can’t work (and what we can do about it.) I hope you'll take a minute to check it out.