The Value of evaluation practice

Abstract

John Dewey spent much of his long life contemplating, from theoretical and prag- matic standpoints, the essential and ancient question of the relationship between means, values, and ends. How a teacher can be evaluated? How do we assess the outputs of learning and the formative and educational development of a child, ado- lescent, or adult? The essence of this practice is inseparable from the process of knowledge construction and the translation of knowledge, including implicit and non-formalizable knowledges that cannot be reduced to the logic of skills. This practice generates a richness which does not stem from accumulated and exploited labor. Therefore, it takes the form of a specific “value”: this value has a social essen- ce, common to everybody.