Some unfeeling kisses for Eisner

I thought I'd blog on the Eisner "Questionable Assumptions" article because we may have referenced it least in the first class. Some of my specific responses are as follows: The idea (his #2) of placing students with the same teacher for years puts a lot of pressure on the teacher training and monitoring systems. What happens to the child who spends multiple years with an ineffective teacher? His assertions about literacy and numeracy "we know more than we can tell" are interesting and right on. I was reminded of my children's school district's recent schedule change to feature more time for reading and math in elementary schools. It may not help educate the whole child, but it will likely raise test scores. Our superintendent's stated goal is to make our district #1 in the state, measurable of course only in terms of test scores. Eisner's question (#11) about what is learned vs. what is taught is age-old and perhaps insoluble. Getting an A over actually learning quadratic equations will always be the ultimate student goal. As an overly cynical (but sadly correct) colleague once said, "No kid ever complained about a grade he didn't deserve." I also have to give Eisner credit for giving me a chuckle with one of the worst sentences I've ever read in an academic article: "To be kissed without feeling is to know that one has been kissed without feeling because of the feeling that unfeeling kisses reveal." There had to have been a better way to make that point.