Information vs. Knowledge

Our classrooms ARE so busy feeding our children information rather than teaching them knowledge acquisition and probably will continue to be so unless something is done to change standardized testing.  Teachers feel such pressure to cover all the material that shows up in standardized tests that less emphasis is put into teaching the skills and tools that will help them acquire, process, communicate knowledge.  Did you know that teachers must take down all posters, word walls, and written print on their walls before students take standardized tests?  All year, a teacher will make references to the print around them and teach students how to use the resources around them to discover answers to questions they have.  Then when the tests roll around, that so important skill is niched because it would be associated with "cheating".  What kind of mixed messages are we sending our children?  To make matters worse, so, so much of a child's success in the educational system is based on those exact test scores. To quote from the article "Emerging Technologies in Learning": "If the most important skills in the 21st Century are finding information and experts, engaging in complex communication skills, solving ill-defined problems, and making decisions, what are the implications for testing and assessment practices?"