Getting Testy about Tests

This cartoon was in the New Yorker on January 16, 2016. Darkly humorous, as one of my friends commented on Facebook (where I'd also posted it). And so a swift little ditty ...


So now that we have got The Test,
Do we not care about the rest?

The art, the music, school plays?
Are they now merely just a glaze

For measurement? Our number-love?
Oh, what could we be thinking of?

And what of curiosity?
The wish to see what we can't see?

The human passions just to learn--
The pleasures that such passions earn?

I've learned (from many teaching years)
That laughter, sadness--even fears--

Are what propel us from our mark,
Illuminating all the dark

Of ignorance. Our passions make
Us want to learn (make no mistake).

And if we cannot measure it,
I do not really care a bit.

For what cannot be measured, see--
Is often what means most to me.

Like education as the art
Involving all our hope, our heart.