Hi all.
This week I was arguing for Standardized testing when that is not really the full story. I will start with a little bit of background.
In Ireland we end up sitting a state exam, the Leaving Certificate, (Leaving Cert) at the end of your final year of Secondary School (High School). Students are not called Seniors, but Leaving Certs! In early June, Leaving Cert students come back to school, which has finished a couple of days previously, and over a couple of weeks will sit a 3 hour paper in all the subjects they are taking, and 2 papers in Math and English. The exams arrive in a sealed box and get taken away in a sealed box and are corrected by a host of teachers over the next weeks before the results are sent back to school in the middle of August.
As a student, it was all I knew, and I had no issue with it. Everybody does it and therefore you can compare yourself with friends and family. It turns out my brother is the book smart one!
As I get older and see the other side of the issue, it is not as straight forward. I have two college educated parents, and while my Mom did not work, my Dad was a teacher and taught me Gaeilge, the Irish language, throughout Secondary School. I do not feel like we were pressured to be good students but we were all very capable.
So I was well suited to the exam and, at the time, never thought that may not be true of others. This is probably still to be found in my outlook today. I certainly see a place for standardized testing and think there is real merit in the huge amounts of data that can be taken from them. It is an easy way of seeing who is the best at a particular activity, even if the implementation could be endlessly argued back and forth. The idea of eradicating them, and allowing classes much more autonomy seems a little to far from a possible reality to me even if it is a lovely idea.
However they can be restrictive and do not allow for as much freedom as some excellent teachers should be given. Me and the other mortals do require outlines at least. Also I see a meritocratic trend, maybe more so in America than in Ireland, of doing exactly what is required to get the results, which can come at the cost of learning to think for yourself which is surely the bedrock of a good education.
'til next time...
This week I was arguing for Standardized testing when that is not really the full story. I will start with a little bit of background.
In Ireland we end up sitting a state exam, the Leaving Certificate, (Leaving Cert) at the end of your final year of Secondary School (High School). Students are not called Seniors, but Leaving Certs! In early June, Leaving Cert students come back to school, which has finished a couple of days previously, and over a couple of weeks will sit a 3 hour paper in all the subjects they are taking, and 2 papers in Math and English. The exams arrive in a sealed box and get taken away in a sealed box and are corrected by a host of teachers over the next weeks before the results are sent back to school in the middle of August.
As a student, it was all I knew, and I had no issue with it. Everybody does it and therefore you can compare yourself with friends and family. It turns out my brother is the book smart one!
As I get older and see the other side of the issue, it is not as straight forward. I have two college educated parents, and while my Mom did not work, my Dad was a teacher and taught me Gaeilge, the Irish language, throughout Secondary School. I do not feel like we were pressured to be good students but we were all very capable.
So I was well suited to the exam and, at the time, never thought that may not be true of others. This is probably still to be found in my outlook today. I certainly see a place for standardized testing and think there is real merit in the huge amounts of data that can be taken from them. It is an easy way of seeing who is the best at a particular activity, even if the implementation could be endlessly argued back and forth. The idea of eradicating them, and allowing classes much more autonomy seems a little to far from a possible reality to me even if it is a lovely idea.
However they can be restrictive and do not allow for as much freedom as some excellent teachers should be given. Me and the other mortals do require outlines at least. Also I see a meritocratic trend, maybe more so in America than in Ireland, of doing exactly what is required to get the results, which can come at the cost of learning to think for yourself which is surely the bedrock of a good education.
'til next time...
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