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1 September 2014
WHAT IS AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT?
Assessment is authentic when we directly examine student performance on worthy intellectual tasks. Traditional assessment, by contract, relies on indirect or proxy 'items'--efficient, simplistic substitutes from which we think valid inferences can be made about the student's performance at those valued challenges.
Do we want to evaluate student problem-posing and problem-solving in mathematics? experimental research in science? speaking, listening, and facilitating a discussion? doing document-based historical inquiry? thoroughly revising a piece of imaginative writing until it "works" for the reader? Then let our assessment be built out of such exemplary intellectual challenges.
Further comparisons with traditional standardized tests will help to clarify what "authenticity" means when considering assessment design and use:
Beyond these technical considerations the move to reform assessment is based upon the premise that assessment should primarily support the needs of learners. Thus, secretive tests composed of proxy items and scores that have no obvious meaning or usefulness undermine teachers' ability to improve instruction and students' ability to improve their performance. We rehearse for and teach to authentic tests--think of music and military training--without compromising validity.
The best tests always teach students and teachers alike the kind of work that most matters; they are enabling and forward-looking, not just reflective of prior teaching. In many colleges and all professional settings the essential challenges are known in advance--the upcoming report, recital, Board presentation, legal case, book to write, etc. Traditional tests, by requiring complete secrecy for their validity, make it difficult for teachers and students to rehearse and gain the confidence that comes from knowing their performance obligations. (A known challenge also makes it possible to hold all students to higher standards).
WHY DO WE NEED TO INVEST IN THESE LABOR-INTENSIVE FORMS OF ASSESSMENT?
While multiple-choice tests can be valid indicators or predictors of academic performance, too often our tests mislead students and teachers about the kinds of work that should be mastered. Norms are not standards; items are not real problems; right answers are not rationales.
What most defenders of traditional tests fail to see is that it is the form, not the content of the test that is harmful to learning; demonstrations of the technical validity of standardized tests should not be the issue in the assessment reform debate. Students come to believe that learning is cramming; teachers come to believe that tests are after-the-fact, imposed nuisances composed of contrived questions--irrelevant to their intent and success. Both parties are led to believe that right answers matter more than habits of mind and the justification of one's approach and results.
A move toward more authentic tasks and outcomes thus improves teaching and learning: students have greater clarity about their obligations (and are asked to master more engaging tasks), and teachers can come to believe that assessment results are both meaningful and useful for improving instruction.
If our aim is merely to monitor performance then conventional testing is probably adequate. If our aim is to improve performance across the board then the tests must be composed of exemplary tasks, criteria and standards.
WON'T AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT BE TOO EXPENSIVE AND TIME-CONSUMING?
The costs are deceptive: while the scoring of judgment-based tasks seems expensive when compared to multiple-choice tests (about $2 per student vs. 1 cent) the gains to teacher professional development, local assessing, and student learning are many. As states like California and New York have found (with their writing and hands-on science tests) significant improvements occur locally in the teaching and assessing of writing and science when teachers become involved and invested in the scoring process.
If costs prove prohibitive, sampling may well be the appropriate response--the strategy employed in California, Vermont and Connecticut in their new performance and portfolio assessment projects. Whether through a sampling of many writing genres, where each student gets one prompt only; or through sampling a small number of all student papers and school-wide portfolios; or through assessing only a small sample of students, valuable information is gained at a minimum cost.
And what have we gained by failing to adequately assess all the capacities and outcomes we profess to value simply because it is time-consuming, expensive, or labor-intensive? Most other countries routinely ask students to respond orally and in writing on their major tests--the same countries that outperform us on international comparisons. Money, time and training are routinely set aside to insure that assessment is of high quality. They also correctly assume that high standards depend on the quality of day-to-day local assessment--further offsetting the apparent high cost of training teachers to score student work in regional or national assessments.
WILL THE PUBLIC HAVE ANY FAITH IN THE OBJECTIVITY AND RELIABILITY OF JUDGMENT-BASED SCORES?
We forget that numerous state and national testing programs with a high degree of credibility and integrity have for many years operated using human judges:
Though the scoring of standardized tests is not subject to significant error, the procedure by which items are chosen, and the manner in which norms or cut-scores are established is often quite subjective--and typically immune from public scrutiny and oversight.
Genuine accountability does not avoid human judgment. We monitor and improve judgment through training sessions, model performances used as exemplars, audit and oversight policies as well as through such basic procedures as having disinterested judges review student work "blind" to the name or experience of the student--as occurs routinely throughout the professional, athletic and artistic worlds in the judging of performance.
Authentic assessment also has the advantage of providing parents and community members with directly observable products and understandable evidence concerning their students' performance; the quality of student work is more discernible to laypersons than when we must rely on translations of talk about stanines and renorming.
Ultimately, as the researcher Lauren Resnick has put it, What you assess is what you get; if you don't test it you won't get it. To improve student performance we must recognize that essential intellectual abilities are falling through the cracks of conventional testing.
ADDITIONAL READING
Archbald, D. & Newmann, F. (1989) "The Functions of Assessment and the Nature of Authentic Academic Achievement," in Berlak (ed.) Assessing Achievement: Toward the development of a New Science of Educational Testing. Buffalo, NY: SUNY Press.
Frederiksen, J. & Collins, A. (1989) "A Systems Approach to Educational Testing," Educational Researcher, 18, 9 (December).
National Commission on Testing and Public Policy (1990) From Gatekeeper to Gateway: Transforming Testing in America. Chestnut Hill, MA: NCTPP, Boston College.
Wiggins, G. (1989) "A True Test: Toward More Authentic and Equitable Assessment," Phi Delta Kappan, 70, 9 (May).
Wolf, D. (1989) "Portfolio Assessment: Sampling Student Work," Educational Leadership 46, 7, pp. 35-39 (April).
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Descriptors: Comparative Testing; Cost Effectiveness; *Educational Assessment; Elementary Secondary Education; Nontraditional Education; Public Opinion; Standardized Tests; *Test Use; Test Validity
Grant Wiggins
CLASS
cited from http://pareonline.net/getvn.asp?v=2&n=2
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Definitions
A form of assessment in which students are asked to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills -- Jon Mueller"...Engaging and worthy problems or questions of importance, in which students must use knowledge to fashion performances effectively and creatively. The tasks are either replicas of or analogous to the kinds of problems faced by adult citizens and consumers or professionals in the field." -- Grant Wiggins -- (Wiggins, 1993, p. 229)."Performance assessments call upon the examinee to demonstrate specific skills and competencies, that is, to apply the skills and knowledge they have mastered." -- Richard J. Stiggins -- (Stiggins, 1987, p. 34).
What does Authentic Assessment look like?

An authentic assessment usually includes a task for students to perform and a rubric by which their performance on the task will be evaluated. Click the following links to see many examples of authentic tasks and rubrics.
- Examples from teachers in my Authentic Assessment course
How is Authentic Assessment similar to/different from Traditional Assessment?
The following comparison is somewhat simplistic, but I hope it illuminates the different assumptions of the two approaches to assessment.
By "traditional assessment" (TA) I am referring to the forced-choice measures of multiple-choice tests, fill-in-the-blanks, true-false, matching and the like that have been and remain so common in education. Students typically select an answer or recall information to complete the assessment. These tests may be standardized or teacher-created. They may be administered locally or statewide, or internationally.
Behind traditional and authentic assessments is a belief that the primary mission of schools is to help develop productive citizens. That is the essence of most mission statements I have read. From this common beginning, the two perspectives on assessment diverge. Essentially, TA is grounded in educational philosophy that adopts the following reasoning and practice:

1. A school's mission is to develop productive citizens.
2. To be a productive citizen an individual must possess a certain body of knowledge and skills.
3. Therefore, schools must teach this body of knowledge and skills.
4. To determine if it is successful, the school must then test students to see if they acquired the knowledge and skills.
In the TA model, the curriculum drives assessment. "The" body of knowledge is determined first. That knowledge becomes the curriculum that is delivered. Subsequently, the assessments are developed and administered to determine if acquisition of the curriculum occurred.
In contrast, authentic assessment (AA) springs from the following reasoning and practice:
1. A school's mission is to develop productive citizens.
2. To be a productive citizen, an individual must be capable of performing meaningful tasks in the real world.
3. Therefore, schools must help students become proficient at performing the tasks they will encounter when they graduate.
4. To determine if it is successful, the school must then ask students to perform meaningful tasks that replicate real world challenges to see if students are capable of doing so.
Thus, in AA, assessment drives the curriculum. That is, teachers first determine the tasks that students will perform to demonstrate their mastery, and then a curriculum is developed that will enable students to perform those tasks well, which would include the acquisition of essential knowledge and skills. This has been referred to as planning backwards (e.g., McDonald, 1992).

If I were a golf instructor and I taught the skills required to perform well, I would not assess my students' performance by giving them a multiple choice test. I would put them out on the golf course and ask them to perform. Although this is obvious with athletic skills, it is also true for academic subjects. We can teach students how to do math, do history and do science, not just know them. Then, to assess what our students had learned, we can ask students to perform tasks that "replicate the challenges" faced by those using mathematics, doing history or conducting scientific investigation.
But a teacher does not have to choose between AA and TA. It is likely that some mix of the two will best meet your needs. To use a silly example, if I had to choose a chauffeur from between someone who passed the driving portion of the driver's license test but failed the written portion or someone who failed the driving portion and passed the written portion, I would choose the driver who most directly demonstrated the ability to drive, that is, the one who passed the driving portion of the test. However, I would prefer a driver who passed both portions. I would feel more comfortable knowing that my chauffeur had a good knowledge base about driving (which might best be assessed in a traditional manner) and was able to apply that knowledge in a real context (which could be demonstrated through an authentic assessment).
Defining Attributes of Traditional and Authentic Assessment

Another way that AA is commonly distinguished from TA is in terms of its defining attributes. Of course, TA's as well as AA's vary considerably in the forms they take. But, typically, along the continuums of attributes listed below, TA's fall more towards the left end of each continuum and AA's fall more towards the right end.
Traditional --------------------------------------------- Authentic
Selecting a Response ------------------------------------ Performing a Task
Contrived --------------------------------------------------------------- Real-life
Recall/Recognition ------------------------------- Construction/Application
Teacher-structured ------------------------------------- Student-structured
Indirect Evidence -------------------------------------------- Direct Evidence
Let me clarify the attributes by elaborating on each in the context of traditional and authentic assessments:
Selecting a Response to Performing a Task: On traditional assessments, students are typically given several choices (e.g., a,b,c or d; true or false; which of these match with those) and asked to select the right answer. In contrast, authentic assessments ask students to demonstrate understanding by performing a more complex task usually representative of more meaningful application.
Contrived to Real-life: It is not very often in life outside of school that we are asked to select from four alternatives to indicate our proficiency at something. Tests offer these contrived means of assessment to increase the number of times you can be asked to demonstrate proficiency in a short period of time. More commonly in life, as in authentic assessments, we are asked to demonstrate proficiency by doing something.
Recall/Recognition of Knowledge to Construction/Application of Knowledge:Well-designed traditional assessments (i.e., tests and quizzes) can effectively determine whether or not students have acquired a body of knowledge. Thus, as mentioned above, tests can serve as a nice complement to authentic assessments in a teacher's assessment portfolio. Furthermore, we are often asked to recall or recognize facts and ideas and propositions in life, so tests are somewhat authentic in that sense. However, the demonstration of recall and recognition on tests is typically much less revealing about what we really know and can do than when we are asked to construct a product or performance out of facts, ideas and propositions. Authentic assessments often ask students to analyze, synthesize and apply what they have learned in a substantial manner, and students create new meaning in the process as well.
Teacher-structured to Student-structured: When completing a traditional assessment, what a student can and will demonstrate has been carefully structured by the person(s) who developed the test. A student's attention will understandably be focused on and limited to what is on the test. In contrast, authentic assessments allow more student choice and construction in determining what is presented as evidence of proficiency. Even when students cannot choose their own topics or formats, there are usually multiple acceptable routes towards constructing a product or performance. Obviously, assessments more carefully controlled by the teachers offer advantages and disadvantages. Similarly, more student-structured tasks have strengths and weaknesses that must be considered when choosing and designing an assessment.
Indirect Evidence to Direct Evidence: Even if a multiple-choice question asks a student to analyze or apply facts to a new situation rather than just recall the facts, and the student selects the correct answer, what do you now know about that student? Did that student get lucky and pick the right answer? What thinking led the student to pick that answer? We really do not know. At best, we can make some inferences about what that student might know and might be able to do with that knowledge. The evidence is very indirect, particularly for claims of meaningful application in complex, real-world situations. Authentic assessments, on the other hand, offer more direct evidence of application and construction of knowledge. As in the golf example above, putting a golf student on the golf course to play provides much more direct evidence of proficiency than giving the student a written test. Can a student effectively critique the arguments someone else has presented (an important skill often required in the real world)? Asking a student to write a critique should provide more direct evidence of that skill than asking the student a series of multiple-choice, analytical questions about a passage, although both assessments may be useful.
These two different approaches to assessment also offer different advice about teaching to the test. Under the TA model, teachers have been discouraged from teaching to the test. That is because a test usually assesses a sample of students' knowledge and understanding and assumes that students' performance on the sample is representative of their knowledge of all the relevant material. If teachers focus primarily on the sample to be tested during instruction, then good performance on that sample does not necessarily reflect knowledge of all the material. So, teachers hide the test so that the sample is not known beforehand, and teachers are admonished not to teach to the test.
With AA, teachers are encouraged to teach to the test. Students need to learn how to perform well on meaningful tasks. To aid students in that process, it is helpful to show them models of good (and not so good) performance. Furthermore, the student benefits from seeing the task rubric ahead of time as well. Is this "cheating"? Will students then just be able to mimic the work of others without truly understanding what they are doing? Authentic assessments typically do not lend themselves to mimicry. There is not one correct answer to copy. So, by knowing what good performance looks like, and by knowing what specific characteristics make up good performance, students can better develop the skills and understanding necessary to perform well on these tasks. (For further discussion of teaching to the test, see Bushweller.)
Alternative Names for Authentic Assessment

You can also learn something about what AA is by looking at the other common names for this form of assessment. For example, AA is sometimes referred to as
- Performance Assessment (or Performance-based) -- so-called because students are asked to perform meaningful tasks. This is the other most common term for this type of assessment. Some educators distinguish performance assessment from AA by defining performance assessment as performance-based as Stiggins has above but with no reference to the authentic nature of the task (e.g., Meyer, 1992). For these educators, authentic assessments are performance assessments using real-world or authentic tasks or contexts. Since we should not typically ask students to perform work that is not authentic in nature, I choose to treat these two terms synonymously.
- Alternative Assessment -- so-called because AA is an alternative to traditional assessments.
- Direct Assessment -- so-called because AA provides more direct evidence of meaningful application of knowledge and skills. If a student does well on a multiple-choice test we might infer indirectly that the student could apply that knowledge in real-world contexts, but we would be more comfortable making that inference from a direct demonstration of that application such as in the golfing example above.
2 November 2012
KOMPAS, SABTU, 15 SEPTEMBER 2012 | 02:32 WIB
Yogyakarta, Kompas - Perubahan kurikulum diperlukan dan salah satu hal penting adalah membawa sekolah merespons krisis sosial. Pada saat bersamaan, menyiapkan tenaga pendidik dan calon pendidik memasuki proses belajar terus-menerus.
Demikian muncul pada diskusi pendidikan ”Perubahan Kurikulum: Urgen dan Perlukah Saat Ini?” di Kantor Kompas Perwakilan Yogyakarta, Jumat (14/9). Diskusi ini hasil kerja sama Kompas dengan Dinamika Edukasi Dasar (DED).
Hadir berbicara pengamat pendidikan Paul Suparno dan Ki Supriyoko; Ferry T Indratno (Direktur DED); pengajar Universitas Sanata Dharma, Haryatmoko; pengajar UGM, Agus Suwignyo; Ag Prih Adiartanto (SMA Kolese De Britto), dan Sri Prihartini Yulia (Pengawas Dinas Pendidikan, Pemuda, dan Olahraga Sleman); dipandu pemerhati pendidikan St Kartono. Semua pembicara setuju ada perubahan kurikulum saat ini.
”Perubahan harus menempatkan bahwa sekolah itu transmisi pengetahuan dan keterampilan. Sekolah juga wahana sosialisasi nilai-nilai dan sikap dalam masyarakat serta integrasi sosial,” kata Haryatmoko.
Terkait itu, kurikulum harus membawa sekolah merespons krisis hubungan sosial, kemiskinan, kekerasan atas nama agama, dan kesenjangan sosial. Harapannya, sekolah juga bisa menyampaikan nilai bersama berdasarkan akal sehat dan membuka kesempatan setara sehingga bisa memahami dan menerima pluralitas, memelihara kekayaan budaya, peran media, dan ekologi.
Kurikulum sekarang, menurut Paul Suparno, justru membebani anak. Dengan 14-16 mata pelajaran, ditambah keterbatasan waktu, siswa tak mampu belajar kritis atau mengambil keputusan.
Pembaruan kurikulum, lanjut Haryatmoko, juga bergantung pada guru. Untuk itu, guru harus bisa mengatasi ketinggalan kompetensi disiplin ilmu.
Hal sama diungkapkan Paul. Penyiapan guru sebagai pelaku kurikulum amat penting, khususnya menyongsong wacana memberi kebebasan institusi membuat kurikulum sendiri.
Kurikulum yang katanya kontekstual kenyataannya tidak, bahkan cenderung seragam.
Menurut Ki Supriyoko, delapan kali perubahan kurikulum (1950-2007) tak didasarkan pada perkembangan iptek dan budaya lokal. Namun, disebabkan faktor politis, seperti penggantian kurikulum tahun 1964 sebagai produk Orde Lama menjadi kurikulum 1968 produk Orde Baru.
”Kalau mau jujur, meskipun 67 tahun merdeka, masalah pendidikan dan tenaga kependidikan belum pernah dapat solusi memadai,” katanya. (TOP/ABK)
Dapatkan artikel ini di URL:
http://nasional.kompas.com/read/2012/09/15/02325662/Kurikulum.Diharapkan.Merespons.Krisis.Sosial
http://nasional.kompas.com/read/2012/09/15/02325662/Kurikulum.Diharapkan.Merespons.Krisis.Sosial
Early on a drab afternoon in January, a dozen third graders from the working-class suburb of Chicago Heights, Ill., burst into the Mac Lab on the ground floor of Washington-McKinley School in a blur of blue pants, blue vests and white shirts. Minutes later, they were hunkered down in front of the Apple computers lining the room’s perimeter, hoping to do what was, until recently, considered impossible: increase their intelligence through training.
“Can somebody raise their hand,” asked Kate Wulfson, the instructor, “and explain to me how you get points?”
On each of the children’s monitors, there was a cartoon image of a haunted house, with bats and a crescent moon in a midnight blue sky. Every few seconds, a black cat appeared in one of the house’s five windows, then vanished. The exercise was divided into levels. On Level 1, the children earned a point by remembering which window the cat was just in. Easy. But the game is progressive: the cats keep coming, and the kids have to keep watching and remembering.
“And here’s where it gets confusing,” Wulfson continued. “If you get to Level 2, you have to remember where the cat was two windows ago. The time before last. For Level 3, you have to remember where it was three times ago. Level 4 is four times ago. That’s hard. You have to keep track. O.K., ready? Once we start, anyone who talks loses a star.”
So began 10 minutes of a remarkably demanding concentration game. At Level 2, even adults find the task somewhat taxing. Almost no one gets past Level 3 without training. But most people who stick with the game do get better with practice. This isn’t surprising: practice improves performance on almost every task humans engage in, whether it’s learning to read or playing horseshoes.
What is surprising is what else it improved. In a 2008 study, Susanne Jaeggi and Martin Buschkuehl, now of the University of Maryland, found that young adults who practiced a stripped-down, less cartoonish version of the game also showed improvement in a fundamental cognitive ability known as “fluid” intelligence: the capacity to solve novel problems, to learn, to reason, to see connections and to get to the bottom of things. The implication was that playing the game literally makes people smarter.
Psychologists have long regarded intelligence as coming in two flavors: crystallized intelligence, the treasure trove of stored-up information and how-to knowledge (the sort of thing tested on “Jeopardy!” or put to use when you ride a bicycle); and fluid intelligence. Crystallized intelligence grows as you age; fluid intelligence has long been known to peak in early adulthood, around college age, and then to decline gradually. And unlike physical conditioning, which can transform 98-pound weaklings into hunks, fluid intelligence has always been considered impervious to training.
That, after all, is the premise of I.Q. tests, or at least the portion that measures fluid intelligence: we can test you now and predict all sorts of things in the future, because fluid intelligence supposedly sets in early and is fairly immutable. While parents, teachers and others play an essential role in establishing an environment in which a child’s intellect can grow, even Tiger Mothers generally expect only higher grades will come from their children’s diligence — not better brains.
How, then, could watching black cats in a haunted house possibly increase something as profound as fluid intelligence? Because the deceptively simple game, it turns out, targets the most elemental of cognitive skills: “working” memory. What long-term memory is to crystallized intelligence, working memory is to fluid intelligence. Working memory is more than just the ability to remember a telephone number long enough to dial it; it’s the capacity to manipulate the information you’re holding in your head — to add or subtract those numbers, place them in reverse order or sort them from high to low. Understanding a metaphor or an analogy is equally dependent on working memory; you can’t follow even a simple statement like “See Jane run” if you can’t put together how “see” and “Jane” connect with “run.” Without it, you can’t make sense of anything.
cited from The New York Times
Dan Hurley is working on a book about intelligence. His last article for the magazine was about a drug being tested to raise intelligence in people with Down Syndrome
Editor: Ilena Silverman
14 Mei 2012
Wonderful Story (Must read it)
Posted by bindousd | 14 Mei 2012 | Category:
Serba-serbi
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Cerita dari email sebelah:
He met her at a party. She was so outstanding, many guys chasing after her, while he was so normal, nobody paid attention to him.
At the end of the party, he invited her to have coffee with him, she was surprised but due to being polite, she promised. They sat in a nice coffee shop, he was too nervous to say anything, she felt uncomfortable, and she thought to herself, "Please, let me go home..."
Suddenly he asked the waiter, "Would you please give me some salt? I'd like to put it in my coffee." Everybody stared at him, so strange! His face turned red but still, he put the salt in his coffee and drank it. She asked him curiously, "Why you have this hobby?" He replied, "When I was a little boy, I lived near the sea, I liked playing in the sea, I could feel the taste of the sea, just like the taste of the salty coffee. Now every time I have the salty coffee, I always think of my childhood, think of my hometown, I miss my hometown so much, I miss my parents who are still living there." While saying that tears filled his eyes. She was deeply touched. That's his true feeling, from the bottom of his heart. A man who can tell out his homesickness, he must be a man who loves home, cares about home, has responsibility of home... Then she also started to speak, spoke about her faraway hometown, her childhood, her family.
That was a really nice talk, also a beautiful beginning of their story. They continued to date. She found that actually he was a man who meets all her demands; he had tolerance, was kind hearted, warm, careful. He was such a good person but she almost missed him! Thanks to his salty coffee! Then the story was just like every beautiful love story, the princess married to the prince, and then they were living the happy life... And, every time she made coffee for him, she put some salt in the coffee, as she knew that's the way he liked it.
After 40 years, he passed away, left her a letter which said, "My dearest, please forgive me, forgive my whole life's lie. This was the only lie I said to you---the salty coffee. Remember the first time we dated? I was so nervous at that time, actually I wanted some sugar, but I said salt. It was hard for me to change so I just went ahead. I never thought that could be the start of our communication! I tried to tell you the truth many times in my life, but I was too afraid to do that, as I have promised not to lie to you for anything... Now I'm dying, I afraid of nothing so I tell you the truth, I don't like the salty coffee, what a strange bad taste... But I have had the salty coffee for my whole life! Since I knew you, I never feel sorry for anything I do for you. Having you with me is my biggest happiness for my whole life. If I can live for the second time, still want to know you and have you for my whole life, even though I have to drink the salty coffee again."
Her tears made the letter totally wet. Someday, someone asked her, "What's the taste of salty coffee?" She replied, "It's sweet."
Pass this to everyone because love is not to forget but to forgive, not to see but understand, not to hear but to listen, not to let go but HOLD ON!!!!
At the end of the party, he invited her to have coffee with him, she was surprised but due to being polite, she promised. They sat in a nice coffee shop, he was too nervous to say anything, she felt uncomfortable, and she thought to herself, "Please, let me go home..."
Suddenly he asked the waiter, "Would you please give me some salt? I'd like to put it in my coffee." Everybody stared at him, so strange! His face turned red but still, he put the salt in his coffee and drank it. She asked him curiously, "Why you have this hobby?" He replied, "When I was a little boy, I lived near the sea, I liked playing in the sea, I could feel the taste of the sea, just like the taste of the salty coffee. Now every time I have the salty coffee, I always think of my childhood, think of my hometown, I miss my hometown so much, I miss my parents who are still living there." While saying that tears filled his eyes. She was deeply touched. That's his true feeling, from the bottom of his heart. A man who can tell out his homesickness, he must be a man who loves home, cares about home, has responsibility of home... Then she also started to speak, spoke about her faraway hometown, her childhood, her family.
That was a really nice talk, also a beautiful beginning of their story. They continued to date. She found that actually he was a man who meets all her demands; he had tolerance, was kind hearted, warm, careful. He was such a good person but she almost missed him! Thanks to his salty coffee! Then the story was just like every beautiful love story, the princess married to the prince, and then they were living the happy life... And, every time she made coffee for him, she put some salt in the coffee, as she knew that's the way he liked it.
After 40 years, he passed away, left her a letter which said, "My dearest, please forgive me, forgive my whole life's lie. This was the only lie I said to you---the salty coffee. Remember the first time we dated? I was so nervous at that time, actually I wanted some sugar, but I said salt. It was hard for me to change so I just went ahead. I never thought that could be the start of our communication! I tried to tell you the truth many times in my life, but I was too afraid to do that, as I have promised not to lie to you for anything... Now I'm dying, I afraid of nothing so I tell you the truth, I don't like the salty coffee, what a strange bad taste... But I have had the salty coffee for my whole life! Since I knew you, I never feel sorry for anything I do for you. Having you with me is my biggest happiness for my whole life. If I can live for the second time, still want to know you and have you for my whole life, even though I have to drink the salty coffee again."
Her tears made the letter totally wet. Someday, someone asked her, "What's the taste of salty coffee?" She replied, "It's sweet."
Pass this to everyone because love is not to forget but to forgive, not to see but understand, not to hear but to listen, not to let go but HOLD ON!!!!
Read more: http://nicefun.net/wonderful-story-must-read-it-vt5574.html#ixzz1uqfq5Ajc
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