When Considering the whole child I feel their creativity should be tested. I believe this because when children grow up they have choices to do what they would like to do. Such as become an employee, become an entrepreneur, and or become a business owner. Children should be taught what is needed to succeed as an adult. I feel like schools focus on testing children rather than teaching children. Most teachers teach children how to take a test. Teachers jobs depend on how well children perform on standardized test. As a child I remember having testing anxiety and would stress out every time we would take a test. I often failed test but I knew the material because my teacher assessed me before and after. I feel children should be tested to ensure they know how to read and comprehend and count money. However I do not feel they should be given standardized testing. Every child is different and should be tested on their level. Teachers should assess children at the beginning of the year, the middle of the year, and the end of the year. Growth should be measured. For example if a child begin first grade only writing one sentence and at the end of the year can now write five complete sentences their growth should be measured over time since improvement was made.
I chose to share this article below because I can remember as a child the new would often talk out how well children are testing in China compared to the US. China test children often. I can't imagine being a child in china.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/magazine/inside-a-chinese-test-prep-factory.html?_r=0
The main street of Maotanchang, a secluded town in the furrowed hills of eastern China’s Anhui province, was nearly deserted. A man dozed on a motorized rickshaw, while two old women with hoes shuffled toward the rice paddies outside town. It was 11:44 on a Sunday morning last spring, and the row of shops selling food, tea and books by the pound stood empty. Even the town’s sacred tree lured no supplicants; beneath its broad limbs, a single bundle of incense smoldered on a pile of ash.
One minute later, at precisely 11:45, the stillness was shattered. Thousands of teenagers swarmed out of the towering front gate of Maotanchang High School. Many of them wore identical black-and-white Windbreakers emblazoned with the slogan, in English, “I believe it, I can do it.” It was lunchtime at one of China’s most secretive “cram schools” — a memorization factory where 20,000 students, or four times the town’s official population, train round the clock for China’s national college-entrance examination, known as the gaokao. The grueling test, which is administered every June over two or three days (depending on the province), is the lone criterion for admission to Chinese universities. For the students at Maotanchang, most of whom come from rural areas, it offers the promise of a life beyond the fields and the factories, of families’ fortunes transformed by hard work and high scores
Hi Tiffany, I agree that they should be tested on a whole. Some students do not do academically well but are going to be great with their hands and get into a trade rather than using academics as a basis of a degree. I think that for some people it is hard for them in school because it is not a passion of theirs and I think that if they know that up front that is good. My mothers friend has a daughter who is graduating high school this year and does fairly decent in school but knows that college is not for her and that she would not do well with a 4 year degree plan. She plans on going to hairdressing school and following in her mothers footsteps and hopefully working at her mothers salon after she graduates her program. These types of programs give the students the hands on experience while they learn the basis and take tests that pertain to their actual subject.
ReplyDeleteThere is so much more to life than academics! I really am not sure how much of what I learned in 16 years of school is actually something that I use in life - not much. The world has changed tremendously and, except for technology, we are still teaching and testing the same thing. We should expose children to options and opportunities and allow them to explore their interests for some time during every year of school. If you allow children to free draw, you can see how little creativity and imagination they have left by 4th grade.
ReplyDeleteAccountability, test anxiety, I agree with all your points Tiffany.
Mary
Tiffany,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that children should not be singled out due to a test that wants to fit everyone in a single category. We are all different in so many ways and this is what makes the world expand. I love being different from the next and I feel that teachers should help students pick out the things that help them define their future with their strengths and weaknesses not with a test that categorizes them on whether they are considered to be normal. I have seen honor roll students fell the standardized tests.
Kontrina
Tiffany,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your views on assessing the intelligence of children in middle childhood. Test anxiety skews the results of what an individual really knows. It is a great idea to assess children on their own development. I think this change will help to have more accurate results.
Salesha