How do I know my children are learning if . . .

they aren't being routinely victimized by the standardized tests administered in the government schools?

It's as easy as asking my eight-year-old to explain to me the difference between a plane shape and a geometric solid. She either can or cannot do it. If she can, I must assume she has learned enough to understand my question and to provide the appropriate answer. If she cannot, then I must take her back through the material until the answer is revealed.

It's as easy as asking this same child to submit to a spelling test of more than 50 homonyms -- words that sound the same but are spelled differently and mean different things. She either spells them correctly based on the context in which they're placed or she doesn't.

It's asking my six-year-old to read a chapter in an American history reader and then explaining to me how what she just read ties in with what she read two months ago. Was there retention of the earlier information? Is she making the correct connections with respect to cause and effect? If so, then it's safe to assume she has learned the material well enough to "pass."

In the old days of public schooling, before some wingnut invented the million dollar testing business, teachers could juggle a roomful of children of all ages -- think one-room schoolhouse -- or a class of 15 to 20 same age children and in the course of a year determine who had or had not learned the material sufficiently to matriculate.

Are modern-day teachers somehow less competent in this respect? I don't think so. I do think that modern day education bureaucracies have crippled our best teachers by inasmuch telling them their own judgement is not to be trusted, that only a standardized test can tell parents and taxpayers what we need to know. Teachers who are with their students seven to eight hours a day five days a week for nine months cannot possibly figure out who's made progress and who needs help?

Sort of like telling parents who know their children better than anyone else that they cannot possibly teach their own.

I'm confused. Is an impersonal test the only and best measurement of knowledge? Observation, demonstration, recitation and application don't matter?

Our culture's perspective on learning is two-faced, telling us, in effect, that neither teachers or parents are to be trusted.

Meanwhile, I'll keep on quizzing my kids and requiring them to prove what they know. I figure I can't do any worse than a nameless, faceless testing service at determining my children's level of education, and maybe -- no, I'm confident enough to say most likely -- I'll do better.