Are you sure you’re focusing on what really matters most, or are you going to focus on the smallest part and assume that’s enough?
If you think that:
TESTING = TEACHING
Then you also think:
INFORMATION = KNOWLEDGE
Which means:
TEACHER = INFORMATION SUPPLIER = ENCYCLOPEDIAS & INTERNET SOURCES
Which will soon lead to:
COMPUTERS > TEACHER
If you think others don’t value what you do, show them how much you matter. If others don’t care, you should care. Make your teaching count a lot more than test scores do. Real teachers know that:
TEACHING > ASSESSING > TESTING
Henrick Oprea 
loved it. i’d go one step further: learning > teaching > assessing > testing
Hi Natália!
Absolutely!! Learning should always be the most important part in education! 🙂
Many thanks for dropping in and for your comment! 🙂
I would flesh out the idea further by imaging the same diagram like so:
The biggest area can be *Learning* punctuated with various sized randomly spaced bubbles occuring here are there – those bubbles are *Teaching* 🙂
Hi David,
I’ve been giving it some thought… I do like that idea, but how about lots of teaching bubbles surrounding – not entirely – the learning bubble? Teaching informs learning, and it’s necessary up to a certain stage, but afterwards it might be external to the learning circle… Just a thought that still needs some working on, though. Thanks for the food for thought! 🙂
Hi Henrick,
Very true, I think it’s more the governments and institutions who often set the agendas for teachers, that think INFORMATION = KNOWLEDGE. Teachers then have to try and work within this stifling framework, while the students suffer and become rote learning automantons.
Jon.
Hi Jon,
That’s yet another serious issue in our field – the amount of pressure we suffer from all sorts of organizing bodies that surround teaching – some are formally organized, as the government, and others are informally organized, as parents’ expectations. Little by little, and if we are able to make the necessary information available to the right people, this might end up changing.
As Instructors, let’s create more opportunities for our students to be engaged. Let’s effectively use individual activities, paired activities, informal small groups, and cooperative student projects. Right Jon. I hope teachers will soon be less stifled & given more leeway for active learning to take place.
And let’s remember that learning may take place for learning’s sake…
Exactly Henrick.