I will begin my blog on testing for intelligence by quoting the
Prime Minister of Singapore, who when asked to explain the high performance
level of their children replied, “I think we should do more to nurture the
whole child, develop their physical robustness, enhance their creativity, shape
their personal and cultural and social identity, so they are fit, they are
confident, they are imaginative and they know who they are” (ASCD, 2010, p. 1).
I believe that used to be the United States philosophy for educating their
children. I cannot say with certainty how we should assess our school children,
but I know that we should be assessing them as a whole individual. We need to
find a way to look at the whole child, and assess not only cognitive ability,
but social-emotional competency as well. We want to measure a child’s degree of
socialization. After all, one of our main goals is to guide the child on their
journey from childhood to adulthood as a productive, contributing member of
society. We also need to assess their self-image and psychological state –
perhaps then we can decrease the number of adolescent and teen suicides.
I can tell you what we should not do, and that is continue
to measure children’s learning, along with teacher and school performance,
based on standardized tests. “If a school’s standardized test score are high,
people think the school’s staff is effective” (Popham, 1999, p. 8). We must
stop trying to equate random test scores with performance and quality. We also
need to stop taking monies that could be used to improve schools, and
contribute to professional development and more qualified teachers and giving
it to big corporations to design and implement testing that tells us very
little about a child. Parents should stop allowing themselves to be brainwashed
into believing that their child’s high score on a reading test means they are
ready to take on the world.
Whenever I want to compare education in the United States to
what occurs around the world, I look at those countries whose children outperform
us; this would include China, Finland, and Switzerland among others. You know
what, they do not use standardized tests in those countries the way we do. The
head of education for Finland, Dr. Sahlberg, when asked to explain their
superior results in education replied, “We are not actually talking a lot about
numeracy or literacy, the agenda for change is more about increase of the arts
and physical education into curriculum, and the highlight of 21st
century skills or as we call them citizen skills” (ASCD, 2010). In the United States we have done the
opposite, removing the arts, recess and physical education.
What is even more ironic is that Dr Sahlberg says most of
what they are doing in Finland originated here in the United States. I believe
it is time for us to trust our education professionals to assess students’
learning – like they do in Switzerland, and reinvest all the money spent on
standardized testing into putting the arts and physical education back in our
schools. Dr. Sahlberg also said, “If you want to learn something from Finland,
it is the implementation of ideas. It is looking at education as
nation-building. We have carefully kept the business of education in the hands
of educators” (Snider, 2010, p. 2).
Again in the United States we have done the opposite, causing some of
our best educators to walk away from the field. In a major city, with one of the
most troubled public school systems, we have the mayor appointing lay people to
run it; whereas in Finland you have to have a background in teaching to
advance.
A properly educated teacher knows how to assess the learning
being done by every child in their classroom; this was part of their training.
A quality school will have in its employ a well-trained child psychologist. I
know that we can devise effective and accurate means of assessing students’
knowledge and abilities without the primary use of standardized tests.
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