The proceedings of this blog began back in September with an invocation of the metaphor of exorcism. Some might have found that strange, but the comparison seemed apt to this old altar boy because impressions and ideas, objections and observations, frustrations and fancying associated with the world of testing do afflict me like distracting spirits. […]
The Complete Posts
Are Problems With Tests Really Problems With Authority?
An unexpected telephone conversation this morning, on the 27th day of for this blog, exposed me to a loved one who trusts what Joe Rogan and his guests say about the pandemic. In other words, that person believes that those voices speak with authority. To do so requires a corresponding belief that the so-called official […]
The failure to reconcile social learning with competitive testing schemes
Hard to believe that seven years have passed since Alina Von Davier and I with the expert assistance of Sue Borchardt created this brief animated video on collaborative assessment as part of the Pulling to the Edge series to accelerate innovation in educational measurement. Alina offers some glittering insights in this short film such as “We (educational measurement scientists) measure very very well what we […]
Two Stories of Failed Testing — And Teaching
Stories Day 2 is made much easier because two friends shared stories from their own personal histories of testing that allow me to riff off of them. First, my dear friend and former colleague, Vasu Murti related this example: Sharing my testing story while pursuing Bachelors in India vs. Masters in the US. Bachelors: 5-years Naval Architecure B.Tech program (Focus: ship design, construction […]
Claims matter the most for those deemed different
In the first days of this blog, Testing: A Personal History, a reader who is also a friend wrote me this reaction: “ I’ve really enjoyed your writing on testing. I’ve always hated tests, but I think its’s more an issue of what is done with those test results that informed my experience than the […]
Too Early for Apgar
I was born early. My mother, by then familiar with the routine of births via my four older brothers, insisted the nurse admitting her had made a wrong turn in the corridor at Union Hospital in the Bronx; the labor room was in the other direction. But the nurse replied that there was no need […]
What’s a Metaphor? The Case of the Symbolic Capitalist
My Aunt Bess died last week; my father’s youngest sibling, the last of that generation. She was 96 and had a full, exciting, and satisfying life. Seeing her discomfort in the hospital (they remain horrible places in which to lie) affirmed that her death brought relief to her and to the family especially my kind […]
Old Friends
Old friends can be countries as well as people, and we do well to realize the value of such relationships.
TO OUR DEMOCRATIC PARTY REPRESENTATIVES: THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS THAN GETTING REELECTED
The last words that F Scott Fitzgerald ever wrote, were ‘ACTION IS CHARACTER.’ He wrote those words in block letters in his notebook. The quintessential American novelist saw through the BS at the last and then sadly died of a heart attack. But his wisdom lives. Action is required to pass the current test. Not words. And certainly not fundraising appeals. Make a difference then ask for money. ACTION IS CHARACTER
Promises Broken, Misinformation Spread: Daylight Savings Edition
Today’s Washington Post carries a story about how our current president has broken his promise to end daylight savings time. You can read more about his perfidy here. (Yes, perfidy — le mot juste — from the Latin perfidus that breaks faith or promise. The Testing: A Personal History Substack is classical) Beyond his admission of that […]
McKeever
My friend of over fifty years Michael McKeever, the man who changed my life in 1972, died yesterday. It’s time for praise not promotion, memorials not memes.
Who on our side doesn’t love a good joke about Trump voters?
Sarcasm is the lowest form of humor AND an ineffective influencing tool Haha. Points scored. Jordan Klepper has thrown down every kind of dunk on Trump voters: Tomahawk Windmill, Elbow Hang, Between the Legs… Endless points scored by emphasizing (definitely not EMPATHIZING) how stupid someone must’ve been to vote for Donald Trump The phrase “trump voters are […]
Prophecy Made Easy; Answers Remain Elusive
Nex-Gen Bureaucratization Is Doing The Damage Predicted: Now What? The entry in my mother-in-law JoAnn Kocher’s 1946 edition of Smith’s Smaller Classical Dictionary on Cassandra points out that the beauty of this future sister-in-law of Helen of Troy was so powerful as to persuade “Apollo to confer upon her the gift of prophecy, upon her […]
Next-Gen Bureaucratization
Opinion by T.J. Elliott The earliest known use of the phrase ‘love-hate relationship‘ in the English language comes from a Joan Riviere’s 1925 translation of the Collected Works of Sigmund Freud. Obviously, many other stimuli had elicited a love-hate reaction long before Doctor Freud used the German ’Liebe-Hass’ to try to explain how screwed-up we […]
Nothing to be done?
Wondering about authority in the aftermath of 11/06/2024 (and my personal prequel ‘Summer of Confusion’), I wandered thorough a few posts mainly as a reaction to all the pundits telling me why millions of people voted for a self-admitted sexual abuser also a convicted felon with a plan (Project 2025, which he glibly and unconvincingly […]
Last Will & Testament A Memoir In Poetry And Prose
This isn’t just about a book, it’s also about someone I think is extraordinary: the Reverend R Cameron Miller. I know Cam, but we haven’t met in person or even shared a phone conversation in forty years. We first met in 1976 when I was the alcoholism counselor for Saratoga County at the foothills of […]