David Szostak has been a 6th Grade Tutor at the Saint Thomas Aquinas Tutorial in Maryland while pursing a doctorate in Theology at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family in Washington, DC.
Most modern schools are obsessed with regurgitation education. This education requires students to routinely cough up undigested facts which they have stored in their short term memory but have failed to learn their meaning and significance. Students routinely inquire, “Is this going to be on the test?” They ask because facts appear only to matter insofar as it enables them to pass tests so that they can move on to the next grade and stay with their friends. Frequent standardized testing fails to foster or assess understanding. In contrast, classical education aims to reveal why facts matter and how they fit together. This understanding takes knowledge about facts a giant leap further. Yet, without standardized tests how is a teacher capable of knowing that students have not only knowledge of facts, but also an understanding of why they matter and how they fit together?
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