Sharon Murphy January, 2016 I recently read an excerpt from Todd Rose’s new book called “The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World that Values Sameness” published this year by Harper Collins. The title of this excerpt, appearing in my local newspaper, The Toronto Star, was “The Flaw of Averages” and it immediately garnered my interest even though the sub-headline was about a lieutenant in the 1950s discovering a fatal problem in the design of the cockpit of U.S. air force

Sharon Murphy November, 2015 This fall, media and governments in the United States are awash with commentary about the scale and role of standardized testing in education. Some are arguing that standardized testing is not out of control. Others are arguing for streamlining of standardized tests. Others comment on standardized testing’s failure while yet others are getting ready to implement new standardized testing in Kindergarten. And, of course, the Obama administration rec

Sharon Murphy May, 2015 Recently, in a series on play by The Walrus, Olympic athlete Marnie McBean commented that "expectation is the enemy of play." In setting out her premise, McBean reported that in one Olympic competion in which the Canadian team clearly held the advantage on many levels, a competitor team unexpectedly beat the Canadian team. As she watched them, McBean observed that the Canadian team, in its expectation of winning, had forgotten about the joy of her spor

April 2015 Sharon Murphy We have all heard of the Colbert Report's idea of truthiness. Well, I am borrowing from Colbert to create the term poofiness--a term that describes something that has been so blown up and "poofy" that is seems out of reach; yet, if you prick it a bit, you will find that it explodes, that there really isn't much of substance behind the poofery. How does poofiness relate to PISA--the OECD's Program for International Student Assessment? Well, an Apri

May, 2013 Sharon Murphy Here's a link to an article I wrote a couple of years ago for the blog, Our Kids, that discusses how the Fraser Institute's analysis of EQAO data misses the mark: http://www.ourkids.net/blog/tag/report-card/