Criminal Minds and School Exams
Posted: August 29, 2010 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Education Leave a comment »
(photo from screencrave.com)
I’ve just watched another episode of “Criminal Minds” and it dawned on me that every little piece of information, every word exchanged, and every object that the camera focused on had to be salient to solving the case. Indeed, Stephen King wrote in his book “On writing” that any event/description that is included must contribute to the story. Not a word more, not a word less.
That’s a limitation for TV and novels, primarily static and linear media. Our paper-and-pen school exams are pretty much the same (Dan Meyer compared solving problem sums to watching American television comedy series “Two and a Half Men” here). I’ve been a teacher: when I designed exam questions, I too had to make sure that my students had all the information/resources to answer the question. The worst case scenario was to include only salient information (click here for example); the best was to add in red herrings at times (just like in Criminal Minds). Regardless, everything had to be laid out on paper in advance.
My main concern stems from students encountering school exam questions knowing (1) that all the information they would need to solve the problem have been given on paper (no need to probe for more) and (2) that there was a pre-determined solution that their teacher (like the story writer of Criminal Minds) had crafted. The students’ job was to find that pre-crafted answer with and only with the given information. What real-world problems have such characteristics? How useful is second-guessing the teacher to solving real-world problems?
After watching several seasons of Criminal Minds, I’ve become quite good at guessing who the “Unsub” is: the camera’s focus leaves a clue or two; the timing and frequency of a character’s appearance help too. But that in no way implies that I’d make a good detective: I’m merely media literate (or just police-drama-literate).
Same with our students. Many of them (or “us” since I was once a student) are merely exam-literate. They may not be good mathematicians, scientists, etc.
