Editor's Note: For those who don't know who Whitney Tilson is, he is one of the many white neo-liberal hedge fund managers out there that need to satisfy their white guilt and think they no more than people of color. Kind of like William T Carroll.

Yesterday I commented on a rather moving, lucid, well thought out opinion piece from yesterday's New York Times. The author Susan Engel is the senior lecturer in psychology and Director of the Program in Teaching at Williams College. OK, fine.

Whitney "I Love Rest Area Glory Holes" Tilson in his latest mass email and blog labeled her as just another "ed school professor." Of course Whitney is in love with his own thoughts and fails to properly vet his convoluted thoughts. Of course, we here at SBSB are willing to sit Mr Tilson down and educate him on properly thinking before he opens his mouth (oops, we don't mean to keep him from opening his mouth at rest area glory holes) or places fingers to the keypad.

See Whitney, Susan Engel is a psychologist who delves into education. At least that is what I have been able to ascertain. If the crack research team here at SBSB is incorrect, there will be a retraction. In fact maybe we should look at her profile page from Williams (click on image to enlarge).

I would say very impressive. In fact if you saw the photo Whitney you would leave the rest area glory hole life behind. Notice what she teaches? Yes, psychology. I am sure she would have a field day with you. However you probably need the entire team at the Institut für schweren psychiatrischen Erkrankungen. I mean like day and night for six months. But go the the profile page and see more. The many books she has written. How many have you written? What's that? I hear crickets Whitney.

One more thing. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence. Students from Sarah Lawrence are hip and cool. I know. I live stone's throw from there. See them all the time. I know, you went to Harvard. Not impressed.

As for your lack of credentials in anything remotely to do with children, aside from somehow, someway siring them (you probably closed your eyes during those "interludes" hoping for it to be over), your bio page at your website comes up a big fat zero. So the question begs Whitney, why do you know more than Susan Engel?

Whitney, you whine that she is not advocating testing. In fact you were in such a hurry to show how much you think you know, as if you were stuck in one of Freud's five stages of psycho-sexual development. Guess which one? I'll give you a hint. It's like every time you email or blog it is your way of showing your "tremendous" phallus. Your way of making up for a certain physical shortcoming. Which probably explains why you are never on the receiving end of the glory hole.

OK, back to what I was saying. You totally missed this line; "The reforms suggested by the administration on Monday have the potential to help liberate our schools. But they can only do so much." At no time, nowhere did she say to give up testing. But you were to in love with yourself to even read this. Or you read it and did not have the higher order thinking skills to understand it.

As far as your comment that schools need to do regular testing to be able to know that students are learning, it is being done and has been done for decades. Spelling tests, reading tests, math tests, surprise quizzes, are just a few examples. We know if a students is learning by speaking with the student. Asking students open ended questions. Problem with people like you and open ended questioning is that the answers are like snowflakes. No two are ever alike.

Whitney the challenge is still on the table. I also want to add another. Teach in an inner city school and show us all how easy it is. Please put your hedge fund money where your mouth is.

As a service to the SBSB fan base here is the clipping from Whitney's email (click to enlarge):

What an amazing article in today's New York Times. Susan Engel, of Williams College basically, at least in my opinion, smacked down the whole aura behind testing students in elementary school. I know right now that Bloomy, Klein, Tilson, Carroll, and all the EDiots are just in a daze, readying a response to this professor, thinking they know more.

Engel says that if we want to make sure children can learn we need to, "overhaul the curriculum itself." That testing is, "is completely at odds with what scientists understand about how children develop during the elementary school years and has led to a curriculum that is strangling children and teachers alike."

Think about this. An adult speaking here. Someone with no horse in the race. The curriculum we have is not geared to students learning. It is geared towards students learning how to memorize and perform like trained animals just to take a test so a school district can feel bigger about itself. She says, "what children need to do in elementary school is not to cram for high school or college, but to develop ways of thinking and behaving that will lead to valuable knowledge and skills later on."

A few things in the article really stood out for me.

These kids in the inner city are not having complex conversations at home. We should as parents from the day they are born start their critical thinking skills. And this is done through language. Talking to our children, not at them. They do not get this, nor the vocabulary at home. No matter how many Head Starts there are they still come to school short changed. When a child asks "why is the sky blue?" and the answer is, "how the f**k do I know?" a child eventually learns not to ask questions anymore and loses a component, a critical component in how to think and learn for themselves.

But this is not being done with what is happening in the schools, in NYC today. The higher order thinking skills are not being developed. How can they be developed when all it is is test, test, test. Memorize, memorize, memorize. I remember in elementary school myself teachers telling us how in England and Japan the students have a lack of independent thought because of all the rigorous tests the students take.

She also is a big advocate for play. Yes, play. "During the school day, there should be extended time for play. Research has shown unequivocally that children learn best when they are interested in the material or activity they are learning. Play — from building contraptions to enacting stories to inventing games — can allow children to satisfy their curiosity about the things that interest them in their own way." But the charter folks, and the EDiots don't want that.

Sure, let's have school until 5 PM, and then home for hours of homework. Come in on Saturdays. Three weeks of summer vacation. All this is old-fashioned predicated on when the country was full of farmers. Bullocks I say.

This is when kids learn the best, and put what they learn into use. During play. Just as an aside. I truly believe the lack of opportunity for team sports, intra-mural, inter-scholastic, rec leagues, etc... really hurts students in the inner city. OK, no more digressing. Here is another really neat thing she said, "during the school day, there should be extended time for play. Research has shown unequivocally that children learn best when they are interested in the material or activity they are learning. Play — from building contraptions to enacting stories to inventing games — can allow children to satisfy their curiosity about the things that interest them in their own way."

Seems to make sense. And I don't think she means the 25 minutes of recess. But why can't we implement what she is advocating? Because it is not something concrete. You can't hold her theories in your hands and see that you have something. Tests are concrete. Testing gives the appearance of accomplishing something, anything. Mostly it accomplishes only hurting students.