Knowing everything doesn’t mean anything

Reading comprehension tests never made sense to me.

The exercises always felt pointless and counterproductive. The teacher would give us a sheet of paper with several paragraphs about a diversity of topics. We had five or ten minutes to digest the material, and then we had to answer a series of questions about what could be inferred from it.

The results of this exam created our reading comprehension score of either low, minimal, adequate or sufficient. Which determined if we got into the cool reading group or not.

Reflecting back, my issue with this system is that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall. Teachers may have been measuring right, but they weren’t measuring the right things.

Skills like obeying instructions, accepting the information that was given to us, and learning to work well within an antiquated industrial system, that’s what institutions want, but it’s not what young minds need.

Carlin once joked that only real goal of the modern education system was to turn students into populations incapable of critical thinking and into obedient, soul dead workers in the conformist consumer culture, being people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation.

He was onto something. Because there are so many better questions that could have been asked on those tests. Let’s compare several of them.

Do you know the meaning of the words? Perhaps a better question is, what other words would have communicated that message better?

Can you draw inferences from this content? Perhaps a better question is, are you inspired to create any new ideas as a result of reading it?

Did you identify the main thought of a passage? Perhaps a better question is, did you have any of your own thoughts about the topic?

Are you able to recognize the literary devices used? Perhaps a better question is, which textbook rules were broken that engaged your curiosity and sparked joy?

What was the writer’s purpose and point of view? Perhaps a better question is, where might the author’s points be wrong?

Can you draw inferences about the writer’s personality? Perhaps a better question is, what aspects of your own personality did you learn about while reading?

I’ve read thousands and thousands of books in my life, some of which were completely incomprehensible to me. But that didn’t stop me from exacting value from them.

Every page was worth the experience because of mindset in which they were read, reflected on and responded to.

Besides, when did we decide that knowing everything means anything?

There are more important skills in life than understanding.

Are you understanding what you read, or questioning why you need to read it?