Assessment? Really?

We, teachers, are supposed to evaluate our students using the idea of competences and capabilities. Are we really doing it, or even trying?... Don´t worry I will answer the question for you... no, we are not! You may be thinking that it must be too difficult, time consuming, too complicated to do it. Well, maybe, but I think that the problem is that this new way of evaluating requires a change of mind, a 180 degrees turn to education.

Lets face it: to recognize that the way we need to educate and assess our students is different that 5 years ago, and that we need to become guides and counselors instead of "know-it-alls" (you know, sabelotodos in Spanish) it is difficult, I know, but we need to be aware that our students are living in a new environment, in a new social soup that offers them endless access to information.

Now it is my turn to be a little bit provocative: do our students really need to study multiplication tables, or country capitals like a 100 years ago?... are we aware of their needs for the future?

During our evolution as a specie it came a time when we stopped teaching our offsprings how to hunt or hide from some predators, because we did not have the need anymore, we were able to "control" the environment, our alimentation and predators much better... my question is... are we in front of a similar situation here? Is technology adding an elemental change in our specie? And the most important idea.. are we realizing it?