I have a friend who just went back to teaching in our local elementary school after a 10 year hiatus. I spoke to her the end of her first month back and asked her how it was going. She said it was fine, she was working with a great group of teachers and the children were wonderful, but it was not fun anymore. She said that everything that has made teaching fun was gone because the school was now "teaching to the test." She said there was no room for creativity or diversion from the set curriculum.
Although I believe there is a place for standardized testing, I think our country puts way to much emphasis on it as an indicator of our education system. I also believe that the tests do not take into account varying learning styles, abilities, home languages, how much sleep a child had the night before, if the child had breakfast, etc. etc. etc. Assessment should be done so a teacher can learn where an individual child is and how best they can help the student move to the next level. Assessments should come in many shapes and sizes considering all learning styles. Assessment should be done only to gather information, not rank schools, teachers, or students.
Finland is a small Scandinavian country and happens to have one of the most successful school systems in the world and you know what?... They only have on standardized test which is during the students senior year in high school. Instead teachers, one of the most respected and competitive professions in Finland, are trusted and allowed a"certain freedom to teach with creativity. Students, too, have autonomy to learn in different ways"(Sahlberg, 2010) They use a more humanistic approach in teaching and do not rely on statistics to measure the success of their schools.
Hancock, L. (2011 September) Why Are Finland's Schools Successful? Smithsonian. Retrieved www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why -Are-Finlands-School-Sucessful
Sahlberg, P. (2010, April 27) What Accounts for Finland's High Student Achievement Rate? Asia Society. Retrieved from www.asiasociety.org/education/learning-world/what-accounts-for-finlands-high-student-achievement-rate
Is important to assess to realize its development ,but in some schools that you mention make many assessments and sometimes do not show the reality of the child,because as you said maybe the day they did the test the children was tired.
ReplyDeleteMaria
Betsy, I agree too much emphasis is put on standardized testing. These tests put too much stress on the children as well as the teachers.
ReplyDeleteOnce I made it to junior high the fun in the classroom was slowly going away. Louisiana became completley focused on stndardized test like LEAP and the high school graduate exit exam some years back. Teachers do not have the option of being creative because the principals and school board officials all want high test scores.
ReplyDeleteMy question is are these test really about the students and the ablities they have or are lacking or are these test about the school's performance? As the focus has shifted from the children and their abilities and skills they lack and become more about school performance and rankings, education seems to not be about the children any longer.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth,
ReplyDeleteI agree that there is way too much emphasis on standardized testing here in the US. Thanks for sharing the information about Finland. I found it to be very interesting!
Amber