A New Word for 'Assessment'
Seeking Schools Underground
In almost every major city you'll find subways in the basement. Nagoya's has the cleanest, probably. Tokyo's belong to a different, more used universe, but they're likewise clean and organized. Staff and passengers keep the insides of the trains as clean as a computer lab, but in the passages between the train platforms you'll encounter the scuffing of a million feet, worn tiles, soft stone walls. A human world, dominated by a human geometry, where foot traffic forms naturally, funneled up and down through stairs and escalators.
Recently, I started taking the Tokyo subway again. I hadn't been avoiding it altogehter — my five-year old son often insists on riding its trains — but since COVID-19, I'd arranged things so that I had alternatives: biking, walking, driving. These days, I can pretty much get where I want to go without going underground.
Going back down, though, I found I'd missed it. Everyone in Tokyo goes to use the subway, at times, and because of that, it can make it the most interesting place to be a person in Tokyo.
There is no engagement between indvididuals. Each person keeps to him or herself. But everyone is lined up, standing or sitting not as mirror images of the people nearby, but showcasing instead the near infinite variability in the human person. Some large, some small, some clean, some dirty, some intelligent-looking, some lost in their phones, all people possessing some combination of everything as we hurtle through dark hallways under the earth.
It’s obvious, I suppose, that we are all some combination of different properties or characteristics. But so infrequently do we think about this when we seek to acquire some new aspect to ourselves, whether through growth or learning. It is, of course, at the basis of the idea of a school. It’s fundamental to teaching and learning. A good teacher will recognize different strengths and weaknesses in a student, and students will likely observe the same in their peers. Instruction is tailored accordingly to make learning more efficient. But after leaving school, we often forget about these things. We might even resent the judgement of others, especially our teachers, and believe we could have done it all better on our own.
We become autodidacts, ultimately. Some more successful than others. Some more committed than others. But ultimately anyone who leaves the institution, and does not return to it for learning, ends up having to learn some things on his or her own.
I’ve been a committed autodidact for a long time. Even before leaving high school, I saw the ultimate aim of institutional education in being to teach learners to think for themselves, to engage in lifelong learning without being lifelong disciples. But last year, just as I returned to the subway, I returned also to the idea of a school. I started recruiting teachers on Preply and other sites, and looking for other students to share the journey.
But the project fell short in a few ways. For one, I wasn't so successful in finding people to take classes with me. I had no peers. More importantly, though, while teachers provided excellent instruction, their longer-term guidance and feedback were lacking. They could help little with charting objectives or directing me which way I should go. They lacked, in other words, the ability to bring to bear the instruments of goal-setting that students get fed to them from kindergarten until the time they leave university, but which students almost never learn to make for themselves. The tests. The curricula. The ability to self-assess and put thinking and learning on a calendar.
And I asked myself, why not? Why weren’t we ever taught to do this for ourselves?
A couple weeks ago, I published a kind of thought experiment, detailing how assessment and learning goals and teaching might be organized in a decentralized learning community. You can read about it here.
The Protoclassic Monitor System
When I shared it with some people online, the thing that got the strongest reaction was the idea of "assessment." One commentator took issue with the word itself and its many unpleasant connotations. And it's hard to disagree with this. Who likes the word "test?" She went on to question another fundamental aspect of the system — the idea of learning goals. She proposed instead that learning processes should be more somehow more organic, open, less "greedy" even. I thought this an interesting perspective, and if you think so too, please comment below or email me.
Another commentator addressed the problem of motivation. Most educational institutions are full of people who simply do not wish to be there — students who have to take required coursework just to do the thing they really want to do (or feel the have to do). Such a group of people would not, one supposes, make a very effective learning community, but how do we approach this problem of motivation, especially outside of an institutional setting? I'd love to hear your thoughts, either in the comments or with an email.
And finally, another commentator looked at the question more broadly. How could self-assessment, with the help of an Evaluator General, be used to benefit our public institutions more broadly? He referred to the work of Adam Smith and left a link to an article he published almost five years ago.
What are some other areas where self-assessment could be meaningfully applied? As always, would be great to hear in the comments or by email.
In any case, I've become somewhat convinced by the arguments that assessment isn't a great term. It carries too much baggage, and, frankly, I don't think there has ever been a student in the history of education who has much liked taking tests, however you call them — assessments, exams, quizzes, term papers, portfolios, and so forth.
But still, there must be some value to it all. At the very least, it can be found economically. It's not cheap to take a good test. Standardized tests furnish an obvious example. The SAT is over $50 dollars, the LSAT over $200. And, while anyone can learn, say, the Akkadian language from a book, to get tested by a qualified expert usually means you need to be enrolled in a private university that employees one, and these, rather unfortunately in my opinion, cost hundreds of thousands to attend .
And so I want to suggest a new term. One that looks, so to speak, on the system from the outside. And, as if schools and learning could be understood as some great collective organization and connection of skills and abilities — some existing, some developing, some never to be born — as paths and stairways, I'd say what we're really trying to understand is the underlying geometry of it all.
If you enjoyed reading, please reach out. I’d love to hear from you.
I designed the Evaluator General for government - and there you have the resources and the challenge I was trying to meet was bureaucrats' compulsion to 'spin'. They mostly go through the motions. This is problematic for all bureaucracies, but particularly public ones, because politicians have no choice other than to pretend they know what they're doing — including when they don't. Why do they have no choice? Because there are always competitors (adversaries in opposing parties and enemies in their own) waiting in the wings ready to pretend to know what they're doing.
For self-assessment, I think the problem is different. One doesn't want to stress separation between doing and being held to account for it — rather the reverse. One wants to show how doing is amateurish without a self-accountability loop. Suppose you really do want to learn and progress, rather than muck about and entertain yourself #NTTAWWT. In that case, you need to proceed purposefully pursuing progress — in which case self-evaluation is pretty indispensable.
Here's a quick exchange between me and ChatGPT to conclude my point.
"Me: how do online courses frame evaluation and self-evaluation in a way that doesn't sound too officious. As a mechanism of entangling one's learning with the discipline of really learning rather that poking around.
It: Online courses can frame evaluation and self-evaluation in a way that feels organic rather than officious by emphasizing engagement, reflection, and growth rather than rigid assessment. The key is to integrate evaluation as a natural part of the learning process rather than as a bureaucratic checkpoint. Here are some approaches:
1. Framing Evaluation as a Conversation
• Instead of a formal “assessment,” courses can use language like “Check your understanding,” “Reflect on what you’ve learned,” or “How does this fit into your thinking?”
• Peer discussion and feedback loops help make evaluation feel participatory rather than imposed.
2. Tying Self-Evaluation to Mastery, Not Just Completion
• Encourage learners to ask: “Do I really understand this, or did I just go through the motions?”
• Use techniques like the Feynman method (explain the concept simply to someone else) as a form of self-checking.
3. Using Reflection Instead of Grading-Heavy Language
• Rather than “Submit your self-evaluation,” a course might say “What surprised you in this module?” or “What still feels unclear?”
• Self-evaluation can be framed as “How would you explain this to your past self?” rather than filling out a checklist.
4. Building Learning Habits Through Micro-Evaluations
• Quick, low-stakes self-checks embedded in content (e.g., “Pause and try this on your own before continuing”).
• Encouraging active recall: “Without looking, write down three key takeaways before moving on.”
5. Framing Learning as a Process of Deepening, Not Skimming
• Online courses should acknowledge the risk of poking around without really engaging. This can be countered with questions like:
• “Where did you struggle, and what does that tell you about what you need next?”
• “What connections can you make between this and something you already know?”
6. Encouraging Iteration Over One-Time Assessment
• Acknowledge that real learning often requires revisiting and refining understanding. For example:
• “How would you answer this question differently now than you would have a week ago?”
• “Go back to your notes from the start of this module—what do you see differently now?”
By framing evaluation as a habit of mind rather than a hoop to jump through, online courses can foster real learning—entangling the learner with the discipline rather than letting them skim along the surface."