I have little interest in a surgeon who says, "I learned that when I was in medical school. Why should I revisit it?" or who says, "I've done that operation the same way for ten years. Don't bother me with new approaches." I see teaching in the same way.

Interest refers to student’s affinity, curiosity, or passion for a particular topic or skill.

The high stakes test culture runs almost totally counter to what we know about how people learn. It causes us to engage in professional malpractice on a regular basis.

We need to understand where are students are at any point during a unit - in other words, what each student actually knows, understands, and can do at a given time based on the content goals we've established.

We aren't quite sure what we're trying to differentiate, and therefore can't quite see how to do it other than giving some students more to cover and some less. That rarely works.

We have students at the university say on a regular basis, "You're asking us to think and no one has ever done that in school."

I think [testing] has had a profoundly problematic impact on student learning. It must seem to students that their worth as individuals is equivalent to their test score. The stress the high stakes culture has on teachers is also highly negative and must surely impact students in a negative way. It also de-professionalizes teachers because it encourages them to be script readers, followers of rigid schedules, and to disregard the needs of the people they teach in favor of the scripts and schedules.