ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS Vol. 30 No.1 12 Confessions of a Departmental Chair on Assessment Wendy C. Turgeon My college has been swept by the “assessment” wave, as have many, if not all, colleges in the United States. This passionate attention to assessment goes beyond the tools of classroom evaluation (tests, quizzes, pa- pers) and has affected every aspect of academic protocol: courses, majors, programs, degrees. We now speak of a “culture of assessment” to indicate a thorough commitment to reflexive pedagogy and attentive program design. In its best sense, the assessment movement echoes higher education’s response to society’s call for accountabil- ity. We acknowledge that just as we continually assess our students within the classroom, we must also assess our programmatic commitment to the larger community. A “culture of assessment” runs deep into the central meaning of education for student, faculty, departments and the college. All aspects of the college experience must be developed so that there is an assessment protocol in place. However, when the “culture of assessment” devolves into its worst sense, faculty are concerned that the call for assessment at the university level may lead to the problems prevalent at the pre-college level with the legislation of “No Child Left Behind.” Here we have witnessed the potential for abuses of assessment so as to become a punitive and narrowly conceived tool of de- fining and measuring success. As reflected at the pre-college level, NCLB has been accused of using unilateral models to assess the performances of teachers and schools that ignore the contextual forces of the social milieu in which these schools live and operate and the durational nature of the educative experience. When a teacher or program is summarily evaluated on the basis of poorly designed and implemented assessment standards, we see the devastation that occurs for the students, teachers and schools alike. Living life under a microscope of persistent calibration can be enervating in ways that darken the soul of what we do. Why Assessment is necessary and important Now, we must resist the impulse towards this negative vision of assessment as intrusive and based on a flawed factory model of education and there are many reasons to rejoice in a call for clear and persistent monitoring of our attempts and achievements. In fact we have always engaged in the act of assessing, evaluating our selves and others within our disciplines and our classrooms and we must continue to do so if we wish to be self-reflective about our practice of teaching and learning. First, we cannot ignore the interiority of the act of assessment. No one would argue that we should eliminate any sense of prescription and goal setting within our courses, our departments and indeed our lives. An Aristotelian telos runs deep in our human desire for directional orienta- tion. We want to achieve more, to do better, to dig deeper, to increase meaning within our lives, to be successful. These are profoundly human goals and may be the matrix in which human happiness and the good life find re- alization. As students, faculty, administrators, we want to see our teaching and learning flourish as it represents our directional arc towards happiness as human excellence, doing and being the best that we can. Assessment also asks us to adopt the perspective of the other. From its nature as exteriority, assessment serves to remind us that we are embedded within a larger community, a community in which we engage in implicit and explicit contracts for mutual benefit and growth. That the larger community, within the college and outside thereof, wishes to see what academics and their students do as “baking bread,”1 is understandable. At the end of the degree program, what can the student do? What have they achieved? I do not doubt that we consult with deep interest such assessment tools as Consumer Reports or Angie’s List when contemplating a purchase or hire ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS Vol. 30 No.1 13 for service work in our home. To the extent that Congress appears to endlessly debate without result, to that extent are we impatient and threaten change. Assessment is part of the fabric of social existence and it offers us a road map to avoid the detours and impediments to a successful communal existence within the polis. So why are some so suspicious of the current climate of the university and its “culture of assessment?’ Are they resisting the mandate that we be part of the society, even as we question it? Are they claiming privileged position due to academic degrees or the esoteric nature of being members of a community of “higher learning?” That is, are we higher than the “hoi polloi” and therefore exempt from it as some sovereign might claim to be above the law? Why are some faculty so reluctant to join this “culture of assessment” to the point that the very phrase sets teeth on edge? To tease out an understanding of our conflicted perspective on assessment it might be helpful to begin with an anecdotal but perhaps paradigmatic example. Several years ago the dean of my college asked me to chair an ad hoc committee whose charge was to articulate the college’s core values and develop an assessment plan towards our meeting them. Our core values, which will sound similar to the core values in many other institutions, are integrity, social responsibility, intellectual and spiritual values, service and global awareness. Our fearless com- mittee took up the task with dedication. We worked on skating around the sink holes of defining “intellectual and spiritual values” so as to avoid any particular religious platform or suggestions of elitism. But when it came to detailing the assessment of the stipulated values we ran into a wall. One fellow faculty member quipped that the most effective way to measure the success of our conveying spiritual values would be to measure the length of our graduates’ stay in Purgatory as compared to those from other colleges. The humor in this suggestion cut deep and wide and we were faced with a daunting task. How would we control for the attitudes, skills, knowl- edge and values with which our students enter our institution compared with those they left at graduation? And how would we know the causal factor was the experience within our classes and college community as opposed to their life experiences outside of the institution? And what criteria would we use as a source of measuring the realization of values that develop and grow throughout a lifetime? We want to fulfill our commitments to the nurturing of the stated values but how can we effectively assure ourselves that we are successful? Therein lies the dilemma. While this example may seem to stack the deck against assessment due to its reference to abstract values and behavioral traits that can span a lifetime, we might still see it as a placeholder for other assessment concerns. I would like to explore the following themes in an attempt to think deeper into the notion of assessment and its de/value within academia: accountability, assessment as pedagogy within the classroom and within the univer- sity, the aesthetics of assessment and finally the temporality of assessment. These must all be considered in light of the players or categories of actions: students, faculty, and academic programs. Accountability As mentioned above, a deep attraction to the affirmation of active and ongoing assessment is its role in determining accountability. With accountability come responsibility and the acceptance of consequences for our actions and non-actions. If our program is not preparing students to pass or, better yet, excel on the teacher certification exams, the entrance exams for graduate studies, the CPA exam, then an assessment program ought to reveal this weakness and push us towards improvements. We are accountable for the promises we make our students when we admit them into the institution and into a program. This does not absolve students of their own accountability but it does remind us that our obligations are tied to the promises we make in offering our program in the manner in which we do. But this is where it gets complex and can lead us into dark one-way alleys. In some colleges, assessment looks to performance on standardized tests as one means for program evalua- tion. Faculty may be responsible for teaching the courses in the program but they cannot control the background knowledge and skills with which students come to the subject matter. Is the pattern of low scores on a GRE subject area due to poor instruction, a weak programmatic structure, unprepared and weak-skilled students, an economy that requires heavy work loads outside of the classroom for survival, a test written to favor a particular ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS Vol. 30 No.1 14 political perspective or approach within that discipline? The best we can hope for is the monitoring of scores, job placements, graduate school placements over a significant track of time to determine how to parse the re- sponsibility here. But even that may defy easy tracking since demographics, social and economic, are always changing. It is certainly recognized that the educational preparation and economic status of entering college students is directly correlated to their success after college graduation. Alexander W. Astin argues for a “talent developmental view”2 of the function of assessment which acknowledges the plural factors that influence college performance but in ways which chart paths of creative assessment use. Determining the quality of an academic program is a complicated business and any attempt to quickly and comprehensively draw conclusions from such data can be misguided at best or destructive at worst. Nevertheless administrators must do so. Unfortunately in some schools what often becomes a major tool for program assess- ment is enrollment numbers. When a program fails to enroll many students, its market value decreases and in the world of shrinking resources, many programs have been eliminated on these financial grounds: classical stud- ies and philosophy3 are two popular programs for chopping but foreign languages often suffer as well. We might wish to ask ourselves whether a university or college has an obligation to its mission that is broader than its fidu- ciary responsibilities. The financial quantification of merit can be perceived as a narrowing of value to the point at which it becomes the only value. Institutions of higher learning must resist taking the market economy as their only and/or dominant model of assessment. Assessment’s natural affinity with the quantification methods of the social sciences runs headlong into the desire that we consider the quality issues of education as important. If assessment uses financial models from the corporate world, we are denying the unique and important role of a humanistic education which runs along a track other than bottom line success. This must be faced head-on and should itself become the heart of a college’s discussion on any assessment plan. Every college must engage in faculty assessment, both for the benefit and nurturing of their students and for the advancement and development of their faculty. How best can we assess the faculty and their performance? When it comes to faculty assessment, we must struggle with the idea and practice of student evaluations that illustrates many of the problems at the meta-level of program on a localized course/faculty level. Yes, the instruc- tor is accountable to his or her students as well as to the institution. An instructor who cancels many classes capriciously, never offers assessment of the students’ understanding, speaks consistently above or below student comprehension levels—that instructor should be held accountable for a serious lack of responsibility and derelic- tion of duty. But that same person might receive glowing evaluations based on the casual holding of classes, easy grading, or simply nice-guyness. An instructor who insists on rigorous and high standards of performance within the class may be deemed unfair, mean, or burdensome on some student evaluations. But then, students’ views can be dead on and should not be discounted, as students are the reason that we teach in the first place. If one is capable of cross-checking or verifying the source of the student evaluation against a systematic student profile, this might help control for some of these factors but that is usually against the spirit of an “anonymous” and therefore protected instructor assessment tool. If students would provide some referential check-point data (their own attendance record, previous acquaintance with the subject matter, their academic profile, informa- tion regarding their time management situation) this might help develop a rubric for estimating the veracity and value of their comments, negative and positive. Ironically the very format that is intended to assure honesty and openness might work against its meaningfulness in its absolute anonymity. Again, if we see trends of low evaluations, we take that as a warning sign but do we question high assessments likewise? A departmental chair wants honest and meaningful feedback on the classroom performance of instructors. This is important for the meaningfulness of the student learning experience and the promotional track of the professor. But how are we to assure the validity of data? Is there a systematic and tested instrument for instructor evaluations out there that can fairly and adequately control for these significant variables? And most importantly, are the results of student assessment of faculty effectiveness being used in helpful ways to guide instructors in their continuing pedagogical development?4 Consequently, we certainly want to hold faculty accountable for the quality of their instruction and institu- tions accountable for their degrees but how do we control for all the extraneous factors and develop modalities ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS Vol. 30 No.1 15 of assessment that accurately measure the achievements of the goals we have set? When my accountant steals my money or mis-reports my income to the IRS, the consequences are quantitative and immediate and we can determine that my accountant is “not doing her job.” But if I supply my accountant with false or partial infor- mation, to what extent am I also responsible for that accountant’s failing? However, faculty performance lacks the numerical standard of performance that an accountant has.5 So, how might we work within the parameters available to us so that we can effectively mentor professors within our department and safeguard the learning experiences of our students? Often this takes nuanced reading on the part of chairs and the faculty themselves. This disposition towards a wise evaluation defies one-dimensional Opscan methodologies and needs to be cul- tivated over time, consciously and conscientiously. No one would deny that faculty assessment is critical for the nurturing of students and faculty alike and ultimately feeds back into the quality of the program. The challenge is how to do it in a manner that genuinely reflects the strengths and weaknesses of an instructor and, most im- portantly, can be used for formative as well as summative evaluation. Assessment as pedagogy One place where assessment seems inevitable, desirable and fully expected is within the classroom. Students need to receive feedback through meaningful assessment tools as to their achievements. Since colleges use grades, points or some sort of quantifiable assessment to calculate movement towards a degree, class standing and academic awards, and as clues of performance expectations for prospective graduate schools or employers, these forms of student performance assessment are essential.6 However, assessment can take many forms or tracks: improvement throughout a time period, effort expended, and the mastery of skills and information lit- eracy. Each of these serves as a different but important source of evaluation and guidance to the student. These plural and at time conflicting goals require a careful calibration of the nature and structure of the assessment tool so as to serve as a realistic and meaningful yardstick for student achievement. When it comes to skills and content, tests should be challenging; they should push the limits of student’s mastery. If everyone gets an A, what does that indicate? That the teacher is fabulous and totally successful? That the students are geniuses? Or that the test was way too easy? None/all of the above? While we do not wish to crush the hopes and dreams of our students, a well-designed test that can offer them the best possible, although still limited, evaluation of their skills and knowledge base is part of an honest teacher/student relationship. Of course, controlling across faculty, disciplines, and colleges is an extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, charge. Can we really expect all English teachers to read and grade essays completely on the same scale? Rubrics7 can certainly help but even with such guidance, there is an unavoidable element of subjectivity in many course evaluations. Some profes- sors insist that grading is more of an art than a science and is built upon years of nuanced evaluations. Much of classroom assessment is a necessary but deeply flawed event. To paraphrase Churchill on democracy, it is the worse form of student feedback, except for all the others. But we might design assessments which assist in helping students reflect on their own progress from the beginning of their course experience to where they are now. We might also acknowledge the role of effort in a certain way so as to encourage active engagement in and responsibility for learning among all the students. But we must ourselves engage in reflection on the function of testing and the importance of honesty and a striving towards accuracy for the student’s own developing sense of content comprehension. To offer no assessment may seem open and freeing (“We are all here just to learn!”) but it fails to provide the student with this important guidance in terms of their own learning goals and potential within the field of study. We should be seeing our courses as learning opportunities and ideally students progress both in content knowledge and skills as they move through a class and a program. We want to encourage them and nurture their development and to do so, we need to honestly and effectively evaluate the degree of that development. Putting aside the ferocious debates between the testing advocates and the “performance” advocates, we can recognize that all forms of assessment can play a valuable role, albeit a different one depending upon the nature of the course and the learning goals stipulated therein. Instead of viewing tests and projects as after-the-fact measure- ments (sometimes referred to as “autopsies”), we might do well to use such methods of assessment in directly and actively pedagogical ways. Tests could be given, marked and then re-introduced within the classroom community ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS Vol. 30 No.1 16 as learning tools. Essays assigned can be revisited within discussion or incorporated as building blocks towards future learning. There is no magic wand to wave and find the perfect test8 or essay assignment at the end but faculty can become more mindful of how they construct their assessment tools and ways in which they can be more useful to the students. Perhaps the most important aspect of student assessment is a clear accounting for the function and meaning of any given assessment activity. Is this to help the student calculate their current level of mastery of the subject at hand or is it to serve as a prompt for personal growth in effort and involvement? If faculty can clarify the role of assessment with the students, the chances of those assessment activities being genuinely helpful increase. Assessment must function both formatively and summatively and the best instructors help students to use assess- ment as a learning tool within the process of mastery as well as a vital source for honest self reflection on one’s ability, efforts and achievements. Astin devotes an entire chapter of his work to the “feed back principle.” He claims that “ assessment and feedback should be an ongoing, iterative proceeding that is integral to the learning process rather than a one-time activity carried out only at the end of the learning process.”9 If a student’s educa- tion is designed to assist them in mastering a subject area or skill, then assessment must keep both goals firmly front and center for it to be meaningful and truly transformative. The aesthetics of assessment One aspect of assessment, at all levels and manners, which is often ignored is the aesthetic nature of the as- sessment project. This notion suggests pluralistic interpretations. In one way, the very act of assessment is a criti- cal judgment of worthiness. We are valuing something and judging it as meritorious or unworthy. A standard of excellence is determined and that becomes the measuring stick against which we line up the person, program, or course to determine relative relationship to that ideal. Have we hit the mark or missed and how far off? How do we determine this standard? What constitutes excellence in mathematics, microbiology, poetry, social work, teaching, or philosophy? In some cases we can appeal to clear quantitative standards but even in science and math there must be room for creative leaps forward that may challenge the very standard that judges it. A doc- tor’s rate of surgery success can be affected by the riskiness of the cases she undertakes. If we simply measure the doctor’s quality by quantity (as so often reported in surveys on hospital and doctor performance,) we are missing part of the picture. Certainly in poetry and philosophy there remains an acknowledged degree of indetermina- tion. We can recognize bad poetry and philosophy when we see it but we might not be able to grasp truly novel leaps forward. We can take the accepted canon as our standard of judgment and this certainly works in many cases but once we move outside that canon we are in unchartered territory10. Nothing illustrates this better than judgment in art. Was Manet an incompetent immoral artist whose presence in the Salon would pollute it or is he one of the great masters of a new vision of painting? While assessment is always present as a mode of axiologi- cal perception, we must remain mindful of the deep controversies at the heart of any valuation activity and be alive to the role of hegemonic definitions at the hands of the established powers and ruling value systems. The other aspect of the aesthetics of assessment is the actual tool of assessment itself as an aesthetic object. What constitutes an elegant tool? Are some exams, surveys, program review documents particularly well done? By that I mean that they achieve their objectives fairly, with just the right degree of meaningful effort on the part of the participants and do so in ways that truly delight (I will suggest that is not too strong a word) the participants? I am sure we have all done some survey from the ubiquitous Survey Monkey as part of our faculty duties. In some cases the survey is framed in language that is clear, allows for all possible answers, is structured in ways that help the participants understand the purpose of the survey and perhaps even encourages them to reflect on how their own answers reveal further truths about that which is being assessed in novel and helpful ways. We have also dealt with meandering, endless surveys with questions that we wish we could write in “none of the above” as our preferred response. Whether we are working on a student evaluation of an instructor and course, a program evaluation for an accrediting agency, an in-house review of a major program or a faculty ap- plication for promotion, designing aesthetically pleasing assessments helps render those assessments powerful ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS Vol. 30 No.1 17 and fulfilling tools for praxis. Their relevance and importance become clear and thereby they find validation within the community. One might argue that this is “window dressing” and irrelevant to the quality of the information gathered and the judgments made, but how we approach such assessments and how they present themselves to us is an integral part of the assessment matrix, out of which emerge reflection on self and others along with meaningful data collection. A survey that is cumbersome, repetitive, too sparse, will be treated with contempt and dismissed and that very act of negation by those for whom the assessment is designed will shape the outcome, thereby tainting the import of any data collected. The temporality of assessment Finally we must acknowledge the elephant in the middle of the room: assessment treats human events as discrete pieces of data that can be quantified, frozen in some snapshot of evaluation. This flies in the face of du- rational experience.11 A classic illustration is the attempt to measure integrity or philosophical wisdom. True, if one’s graduates end up in jail as they walk off the commencement platform, we might question how your institu- tion has nurtured personal accountability and integrity. But even then, who is to say that the seeds for criminal behavior and unethical actions were not sowed way before matriculation at your institution? We can measure what student A knows on this day at this time but does that adequately represent their overall understanding and mastery of the material? And if a program produces teachers that have difficulty finding employment im- mediately after graduation, is that a function of the ineffectiveness of the program, the skill sets of that current group of graduates, a faltering job market, or a recalcitrant system that is unwilling to try new and innovative ideas as instilled in these graduates? Some skills and knowledge may take years to fully develop and bear fruit while others may lend themselves to an easy measurement of success according to some industry standard. So assessment must always take the long term durational approach if it hopes to claim access to some truth about the student, program, faculty, college. Many of the discussed forms of assessment can only be meaningful over some time period, but when we are dealing with the rich and nuanced fruits of education we might find the factory model of measuring effective production simply fails us. We are called upon by our allegiance to values deeper than or at the very least differ- ent from a market economy to advocate for a cautious and thoughtful use of assessment. The very awareness of this can itself enhance the function of assessment within an institution. The Philosopher’s view on Assessment While all disciplines contribute to the ongoing discussion about the place of assessment in the academy, phi- losophy might be able to contribute its own perspective as particularly helpful. As a discipline committed since Socrates to cogent argumentation, clear and relevant explanation, the crafting of good reasons, philosophy can appreciate the spirit of the call for assessment. It matters how we do what we do so that we can demonstrate its meaning and hopefully its success. Or at least obtain necessary feedback information so as to evaluate critically the nature and scope of our goals and our progression towards them. To the extent that the activity of doing philosophy instantiates critical thinking, assessment is embedded within its very nature. Philosophers applaud attention to aims and objectives and the careful monitoring of relative success at attaining them. More recent views on philosophy (such as that espoused by the “Philosophy for/with Children” movement)12 characterize the activity of philosophy as not only critical but also caring and creative. The notion of “caring” is admittedly problematic since it could be construed as non-critical, hesitant to challenge because one wants to be “caring” or polite. But we might also see this notion of caring as more importantly referencing the presence of philosophical thinking within a community, a community that must maintain inter-personal connections and cultivate respect and attention (if not always acceptance) to all ideas. To the extent that we see philosophy as car- ing in this sense, we acknowledge that what we do is embedded within a larger community and must be shared, ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS Vol. 30 No.1 18 justified, and challenged by that community. Therefore, criticism must be undertaken so as to maintain com- munication and sharing, but not foreclose dialogue at the same time. The exteriority of assessment reminds us of that embeddedness and can serve as a powerful indicator that we do not exist in a vacuum. Our graduates go out into the world and carry with them into the world the skills and knowledge that they acquire and are hope- fully continuing to develop. We want them to do so with confidence and humility. Therefore, accountably to the larger community is essential for the college community to thrive. However, to the extent that philosophical thinking is creative, we must acknowledge that it might challenge the very rubrics against which it is measured. As mentioned above, many great works of art, philosophical treatises, and scientific theories failed the assessment rubric of the time. Copernicus would definitely not have passed Astronomy 101 if he had failed to learn “that we live in a geocentric universe.” Peter Abelard’s challenge of superstitious views was not well received by the assessment standards of Bernard of Clairvaux. If a culture of assessment means that we must set learning goals and fulfill them without reflectively and continually challeng- ing those very standards, then philosophy (along with many other disciplines) will be perceived as recalcitrant non-players. Finally, a number of writers in the Humanities have reminded us that the model of a university education, perhaps all education, should be a “cultivation of our humanity,” to borrow the title of Martha Nussbaum’s book13. She recalls the university to a much larger charge than career preparation: we are committed to “life preparation.” And that is a process that does not end at graduation. We are seeking to introduce students to knowledge and skills that will travel with them throughout their lives. We want them to continue to mature into their humanity but to expect this process to be complete or perhaps even measurable in some quantifiable sense at the completion of a course or degree program falsifies the very goal to which we aspire. Noted psychologist Howard Gardner14 argues for a view of education that introduces students to the large human values of “Truth, Beauty and Goodness.” These values are central to any human life and yet if we were asked to develop learning goals and assessment tools to measure our success, we would face the same challenge that my committee faced on determining measurements of integrity in our students. Does that invalidate the importance of these quintessential values? Of course not. None of this serves as an anti-assessment argument but it is offered as a caution that a “culture of assessment” within a college must be thoughtfully promoted and owned by the entire college community. If it is miscon- strued, it can devolve into a model that fails to see beyond short term goals and objectives that lend themselves to mere quantification which will generate more resistance from the academic community. In its best instantia- tion, a “culture of assessment” reflects a deep commitment to keeping promises through a continual cycle of self reflection and improvement. We avoid a complacent status quo as we respond to the interests and needs of all stakeholders in higher education and reestablish the importance of education within society in ways that are transparent and accessible. This fruitful model of assessment confirms the need to be mindful of accountability in ways that acknowledge the nature of a life as durational, qualitative and infinitely nuanced. Endnotes This metaphor is attributed to Novalis. Note that he follows that stipulation with the qualification that 1. although philosophy bakes no bread “she can procure for us God, Freedom, Immortality. Which, then, is more practical, Philosophy or Economy?” Alexander W. Astin, 2. Assessment for Excellence, American Council on Education, 1993. Despite the seeming datedness of this study, Astin offers some cogent critique of the assessment movement and crafts a model which incorporates assessment into every aspect of the educative nature of education for the benefit and growth of all constituents. In chapter four he discusses the ways in which students entering profiles can be used to promote development and factor into a nuanced assessment study of college per- formance. A December 2009 article in the New York Times, “Career U.- Making College Relevant” reported 3. ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS Vol. 30 No.1 19 that many colleges were re-aligning their programs and courses to reflect student interest in ca- reer applications. See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/education/edlife/03careerism-t. html?pagewanted=1&emc=eta1 Astin (op. cit.) devotes chapter seven to general discussion of using assessment tools as feedback mecha-4. nisms for the benefit of faculty, students and institutional goals. For example, one faculty indicated to me that he considered high grades in his class a sign that he had 5. done a good job; low grades indicated the extent that he had failed to teach. Is this a fair conclusion? Unless you are quite brave. In a recent post on the 6. website Inside Higher Ed, it was reported that Cathy Davidson of Duke University offered her class without any grading: http://www.insidehighered.com/ news/2010/05/03/grading It is worth noting that it appears that everyone will earn an “A.” The Association of American Colleges and Universities has an extensive library of rubric models on its 7. website: http://www.aacu.org/value/rubric_teams.cfm The value of any rubric still rests within the hands of the practitioner and how they apply the rubric to the student work at hand as filtered through their own experienced standards of judgment. E.D. Hirsch, Jr. offers a thoughtful and enlightening argument for the value of multiple choice exams as 8. tools to assess knowledge acquisition and critical thinking skills in The Schools We Need and Why We Do not Have Them, 1996. On the other hand, he is highly critical of “authentic assessment” in his argu- ments. Astin, op. cit., p. 184.9. A good illustration of this canon shift is the redefinition of many works written by women in previous 10. centuries as “philosophy” whereas they were previously ignored or classified as memoirs or women’s writ- ings by the dominant philosophical canon protectors. See Catherine Villanueva Gardner, Women Phi- losophers (2004) for a reconsideration of some women writers such as George Eliot, Catharine Macaulay and Chrinstine de Pisan (among others) as philosophers. In another article on 11. Inside Higher Education, Nancy Rosenbach and Peter Katopes argue for education being recognized as needing time to bear fruit, to unfold. See “The lesson of the Delicate Arch”, http:// www.insidehighered.com/views/2010/05/04/arch This is a short but lovely argument for a short-sighted model of assessment. Matthew Lipman and the work of the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy Children gave voice 12. to “P4C” in the United States but this idea has gained ground on every continent and appears in plural forms. Nussbaum, Martha, 13. Cultivating Humanity, Harvard University Press, 1998. While this is an extended defense of a multicultural education, her arguments serve to support a qualitative value to education over a quantification of it. Gardner, Howard, 14. The Disciplined Mind- What all Students Should Understand, Simon and Schuster, 1999 (revised 2000.) His focus here is pre-college but his vision of education transformed around these three values is inspiring for education at all levels. Address coresspondence to: Wendy C. Turgeon turgeon@optonline.net Assistant Professor Philosophy Department St. Joseph’s College New York