Learning Gain

When I was very little I knew absolutely nothing.
When I was six I had learned not put my finger in a plug socket.
By ten I had learned that most children were quite smelly.
By eleven I had learned that nobody likes a swot.
At sixteen I had learned other things I cannot put here.
At twenty one I learned that being six was a blissful state that I wanted to return to.

What did HE learn?

We live our lives learning - even though we go through an education system that pides itself on helping us to learn - the fact is that we learn anyway.  Trying to measure learning is fraught with methodological and measurement difficulties, lack of appropriate control benchmarks and influenced by environmental variables.  So why do we bother?

Ah, well.  Those in receipt of public money and who are accountable to "society" for their efforts, such as Doctors, Nurses, Policemen, Firemen, Teachers and Lecturers need a way to be shown to be doing their jobs.  Measuring them in ways that can be measured is the brilliant response that our political leaders grope for.

So, that's alright then.