Words in instructions

This book takes us to the heart of the evaluation system for the Gabonese baccalaureate and classroom tests in French. To reveal its content, the author undertakes an exegesis with an epistemological flavor, questioning the words contained in one of the pedagogical tools that influences the destiny of millions of pupils: school instructions. The words are dissected to reveal the ideological substratum, models of cognition and educational theories that inhabit them. In deliberately accessible language, the author calls for a paradigm shift in school evaluation. If we are to move towards the pupil autonomy so much advocated by Gabon's education authority, we urgently need to break with the current form of assessment, which emphasizes intelligence rather than teaching, information rather than training, reproduction rather than pupil production or creativity.