Peter Greene reliably reads all the studies, think tank reports, foundation proclamations, and other stuff that pours forth from the Think About Education Industry.

 

In this post, he is thinking about something else, something very important: his 18-month-old grandson.

 

This is a young man with a long list of studies, reports, and policy briefs. Well, diapers, not so much briefs.

 

As Peter writes:

 

He is, at 18 months, a Man of Adventure. He knows many exciting activities, such as Putting One Thing Inside of Another Thing, or Stomping Vigorously Upon the Ground. He knows the word “dog” and is involved extensive survey of just how many dogs there are in the world, which also involves working out which survey items are dogs, and which are not. In the photo above, you can gauge his mastery of Spoon Technique as applied to Ice Cream. This is part of his extensive study on What Can Be Safely and Enjoyably Eaten.

 

 While outdoors he devotes his time to Running Studies, by which I don’t mean the management of studies, but the study of actual running. A popular game– Walking Up The Top of the Hill, followed by the sequel, Running to the Bottom of the Hill (“Hill” here defined as “Stretch of mildly tilted ground”). This dovetails with another one of his spirited experiments on the question of When Is It a Good Time To Applaud and Cheer? (The complete answer has not yet been compiled, but it clearly includes “after you have made it to the top of the hill” and “after you have run down.”)

 

Peter knows that somewhere there are people with Very Important Titles trying to figure out ways to determine whether this child is improving. What test should be devised? How should he be measured? Will he ever amount to anything if he doesn’t have a battery of tests to rate him, rank him, and enable comparison to children of the same age in other states and nations?