Works written by John Newman, Adrienne Rich, Inge Bell, and Paulo Freire all somehow illustrate the authors" individual view on education and its problems. All authors, through different points and ideas, offer differing opinions on liberal arts educations. Though not all of their viewpoints are the same, or even similar, they do all seem to agree that education should not be about a student remembering inane facts and dates only to recite them on a standardized or multiple-choice test. These authors share the thought that education should not be about aptitude tests or "measurements of learning." However, they do not agree about how this system should be improved. The belief that education should be reformed is not limited to these select few authors; many others share these same views. I personally agree with these author's viewpoints and ideas regarding a change within the educational system. I mostly agree with Freire's viewpoint, which says that the current system of education is not as conducive to learning as it could be. The structure of education has remained the same mainly because it is easier to administer tests in this manner. Nevertheless, education would greatly benefit from reform towards a system with more student involvement.
The problem with professors using multiple-choice tests is that these .
types of tests do not reflect how well the student understands the subject. Instead, it tests the student's knowledge of the subject at that particular moment. Therefore, the student studies for the exam, memorizing the "important" dates and facts. If the student successfully studies and retains the information long enough, he or she will receive a good grade. This is the problem with this system. Once the usefulness of the information has passed, it will most likely be forgotten. This will soon develop as a habit for the student, who gets better at remembering information for a short amount of time, but does not improve how much he or she actually knows.