Thanks to Dave Snowden for objecting to the Myers Briggs is an email group I monitor and occasionally participate in. His comments encouraged me to participate again. Here is what he said on his blog in a post on the Skeptics Dictionary. Dave has never taken the Myers Briggs because “it has very dubious roots and also that it attempts to put people into little boxes.” I agree completely and have also never taken it. I took up related issues in a post from long ago, Talking About Wine (& Complexity) – The New Yorker.
Dave points to the Skeptics Dictionary that bashes the Myers Briggs. It gives a very detailed critique of the origins and validity of this test based on Carl Jung’s theories. The test is popular with those looking for simplicity. One might say the same thing about Carl Jung who ideas have long pasted out of academic psychology, except as a part of its history. One of the dangers of this quest for simple answers is found in public education today. As I wrote in my post on Robert Parker:
“It is the same simple faith in numbers that has led many states, including mine, Massachusetts, to develop a test as a sole measure of the quality of a student's education. Now the state tax payers' money is spent on testing rather than programs to actually teach stuff and the shrinking local school budgets are forced to be applied to preparation for these tests, to stay competitive for outside funding, rather than using the same time and money to prepare students to be successful in life.”
I recenlty saw that the Massachusetts Education Board wants to raise the required score to graduate which which adversely effect those who most need the high school diploma to suceed in life.
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