[originaltext] Let children learn to evaluate their own work. A child learni

Let children learn to evaluate their own work. A child learning to talk does not learn by being corrected all the time. He notices a thousand times a day the difference between the language he uses and the language those around him use. Bit by bit, he makes the necessary changes to make his language like other people’s. In the same way, when children learn to do all the other things, for example, to walk, run, climb, ride a bicycle, they learn to do them without being told. They compare their performances with those of more skilled people, and slowly make the needed changes. But in school we never give a child a chance to find out his own mistakes for himself, let alone correct them. We do it all for him as If we thought that he would never notice a mistake unless it was pointed out to him, or correct it unless he was made to. Soon he became dependent on the teacher. Let him do it himself. Let him work out, with the help of other children, what this word means, what answer is to that problem, whether it is a good way to say or do this or not.
    If it is a matter of right answers, give him the answer book. Let him correct his own papers. Why should we teachers waste time on such routine work? Our job should be to help the child when he tells us that he can’t find the way to get the right answer. Let’s end this nonsense of grades, exams, marks. Let’s throw them all out, and let the children learn what all educated persons must some day learn, how to measure their own understanding, how to know what they know or do not know.