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Health & Fitness

Can You Do It?

"Don't you love it when people in school are like, "I'm a bad test taker"? You mean, you're stupid. Oh, you struggle with that part where we find out what you know?"

Daniel Tosh is a comedian who makes lots of people laugh and cry at the same time!  Basically his job is to stand in front of a green screen and read jokes from a teleprompter while he makes off-color and in many cases, racist remarks.

And no one is off-limits.  It doesn't matter what group you align yourself with, what race or religion you are, Josh will come after you if he thinks he'll get a laugh.  But not all jokes are at the expense of others.  One joke I particularly enjoyed started out, "Money doesn't buy happiness." Uh, do you live in America? 'Cause it buys a WaveRunner. Have you ever seen a sad person on a WaveRunner?"

Some of his jokes however do hit a little close to home.  For example, "Don't you love it when people in school are like, "I'm a bad test taker"? You mean, you're stupid. Oh, you struggle with that part where we find out what you know?"

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When I first heard this I was like, 'Yikes!  That's harsh!  Why is that comedian talking about me on t.v.?  Then I thought back to the time when Outcome-Based Education was all the rage.  Maybe it still is or maybe the name has been changed. 

OBE is based on student outcomes.  In other words, can a student who passes shop class actually change the oil in a car?  The test would be simple.  The teacher would say, "Hey kid!  Change the oil on this car."  If the kid can do it he/she passes.  If not, he/she doesn't.  Easy.  Of course there's more to shop class than changing the oil of a car but the premise is reasonable...  Either you can do it or you can't. 

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Of course this wouldn't work if you were taking Human Growth and Development.  It would really stink to have to tell a student, 'I have bad news and even more bad news.  You failed the test AND you have an STD.'  But why not push OBE for other classes? 

Someone might argue, "You can't do that for music or art".  Really?!  It's done all the time in the real world.  If you can't paint no one buys your art.  If you can't play the violin, no one buys a ticket for the symphony.  But for some reason we don't apply these same standards for students graduating from high school.

In fact, the BEST science lesson I ever saw being taught involved a bracelet where the company advertised it could support a large amount of weight.

The science teacher saw the advertisement, bought the bracelet and the next thing I know I'm walking past the students who are building a platform (they themselves designed) in the school parking lot to put the bracelet to the test.  It was simply amazing and these kids were in fifth grade.  Nothing could deter them.  I saw hammers, nails, and plenty of sore thumbs.  It was a thing of beauty!  So what if a few of us teachers had to park on the street for couple of weeks.  We didn't care.  The students didn't have instant success and there were plenty of times when they had to return to the drawing board in order to reach their goal. 

The bottom-line is that life is one, big Outcome-Based Education model. I would like to see it applied in as many areas of our schools as possible. 

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