5 Matching Annotations
  1. Oct 2023
    1. arguments in favor of these ''objective'' tests: They are easy to grade; uniformity and unmistakable answers imply fairness; one can compare performance over time and gauge the results of programs; the validity of questions is statistically tested and the performance of students is followed up through later years.

      Some of the benefits of multiple-choice tests.

      Barzun misses the fact that these are not just easy for teachers to grade, but they're easier for mass grading by machines in a century dominated by standardization of knowledge in a world dominated by standardized mechanization for a mass-production oriented society.

      Cross reference educational reforms of Eliot following the rise of Taylorism.

    1. https://udenver.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcuceuspzkuE9VomnEaGva1HH1ra_iS4Eua?ref=jessestommel.com#/registration

      Some related ideas that are suggesting some sort of thesis for improving the idea of ungrading: - We measure the things we care about. - In Education, we care about learning and understanding, but measuring these outside of testing and evaluation is difficult at best (therefor ungrading). - No one cares about your GPA six months after you graduate. - Somehow we've tied up evaluations and grades into the toxic capitalism and competition within US culture. Some of this is tied into educational movements related to Frederick Winslow Taylor and Harvards Eliot. - Hierarchies instituted by the Great Chain of Being have confounded our educational process.

  2. Aug 2022
  3. Jun 2021
    1. Google’s headquarters, in Mountain View, California—the Googleplex—is the Internet’s high church, and the religion practiced inside its walls is Taylorism.

      The idea of Taylorism as a religion is intriguing.

      However, underlying it is the religion of avarice and greed.

      What if we just had the Taylorism with humanity in mind and took out the root motivation of greed?

      This might be akin to trying to return Christianity to it's Jewish roots and removing the bending of the religion away from its original intention.

      It's definitely the case that the "religion" is only as useful and valuable to it's practitioners as the practitioners allow. In the terms of the McLuhan-esque quote "We shape our tools and thereafter they shape us." we could consider religion (any religion including Taylorism) as a tool. How does that tool shape us? How do we continue to reshape it?

      While I'm thinking about it, what is the root form of resilience that has allowed the Roman Catholic Church to last and have the power and influence it's had for two millennia?

    2. The goal, as Taylor defined it in his celebrated 1911 treatise, The Principles of Scientific Management, was to identify and adopt, for every job, the “one best method” of work and thereby to effect “the gradual substitution of science for rule of thumb throughout the mechanic arts.”

      Reminder to go back and read this.

      [[Frederick Winslow Taylor]]