Tech versus the Human Touch; The Crazy Curriculum

Should stadard­ized tests dom­i­nate the cur­ricu­lum? These arti­cles are from edu­ca­tion jour­nals, but speak about some­thing very relevant.

From an href="http://www.pilambda.org/horizons/v81-4g/Perry.pdf">article (pdf) in
the lat­est issue of href="http://www.pilambda.org/horizons/v81-1/v81index.htm">Educational
Horizons, a teach­ers' jour­nal: Why did my first exper­i­ment with
tech­nol­ogy fail,and yet my sec­ond exper­i­ment suc­ceeded? Ana­lyz­ing the out­comes,
I came to under­stand that the key fac­tor was me. Stu­dents need a teacher. We
edu­ca­tors need not worry about replace­ment by some new tech­nol­ogy; edu­ca­tion is
all about the human connection.

Another href="http://www.pilambda.org/horizons/v81-4g/Foster.pdf">article (pdf)
men­tions how the best learn­ing expe­ri­ences are hap­pen­ing in schools that haven't
let stan­dard­ized tests com­pletely dom­i­nate the cur­ricu­lum. In such schools,
stu­dents take the tests and pass them and then move on to other lessons, the
lessons that really edu­cate peo­ple. I call this ?gthe crazy curriculum.