When students focus on tests, they are thinking about what they need to remember to get a good grade, he said. They are not taking the time to think about why they are learning this information, and why it is important in their life.

That’s the conclusion of a study of 5,000 students taking high school health classes. Students in classes where teachers emphasized the importance of learning information because it would be on the tests were less likely to actually develop healthy habits in their lives than those in classes where the teacher concentrated on the relevance of the information.

But let’s not worry about developing life-long learners — the state tests will be coming up in a few months….