Parents of elementary
school students come face to face with the stresses of constant testing in
public schools today. The anxiety it produces is palpable. Not only is there pre-test
anxiety, but there is also test-day nervousness, and later, the results can
inflict even more damage. I have experienced it firsthand. Though, I always
breathed a sigh of relief that the outcome was not traumatic as well. In their
book, Strategies that work, authors
Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis express their concern about this new testing-mania
invading the public school systems, as they report that the federal No Child
Left Behind mandate is becoming known as, “No Child Left Untested”. Harvey, S.
and Goudvis, A.(2007), p.239
Working as an ESE inclusion intern, I sat
in a fourth grade classroom and listened as the teacher lectured her students
sternly about how she could lose her job if they did not perform well on their
F-CAT tests; (as if they weren’t already under enough stress). This brings me
to a much over-looked facet of the classroom environment in the “real world”.
Ironically, this is a facet of the classroom responsibility that the College of
Education impresses on teacher candidates to be especially mindful of: Creating
a safe, secure learning environment where children feel comfortable. So, how do educators become blind to the fact
that putting this amount of stress on students is actually the antithesis of “Creates positive
learning experiences: Recognizes cognitive and affective needs of individual students and
arranges learning environments and activities to meet these needs.” (Accomplished Professional and Pre-professional Competencies for
Teachers of the Twenty-First Century; Florida Education Standards Commission, Florida Department of
Education, Tallahassee, Florida, 1996)
A
study on Brain-Based Learning, provides some profound research,
that is very applicable to this topic; it states: “Chronic over-secretion of
stress hormones adversely affects brain function, especially memory. Too much
cortisol can prevent the brain from laying down a new memory, or from accessing
already existing memories”. Stevens-Smith, D. (2006). Brain Games. Strategies,
Vol. 19. Retrieved October 24, 2007; www.healthybrain.org.
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An alarming report coming from authors Goudvis
and Harvey sheds light on what could turn out to be a destructive backlash from
NCLB 2002. The authors refer to an article published in Bloomberg Markets, called “How Test Companies Fail Your Kids”. This
eye-opening article written by David Glovin and David Evans begins by citing
statistics on the $2.8 billion dollar testing industry, and then goes on to
reveal that, “From 2003 to 2006 scoring errors affected literally hundreds of
thousands of students in the United States. Even Tester-in-Chief Roderick
Paige, former U.S. education secretary, expressed concern that testing may not
be done accurately and competently. (Evans, D., Glovin,D. Bloomberg Markets, Dec. 2006: 126-142); Goudvis and Harvey, 2007,
p. 239.
While
authors Evans and Glovin were disturbed by the fact that the lives of school
children are being negatively influenced by apparent flaws in the accuracy of
the testing industry, I would like to bring attention to what I feel is a lack
of professional insight into the whole idea of “one test fits all”;
which is basically what appears to be the approach to testing (and failing)
students in America’s free and democratic public education system. If the
education process is required to be “equitable”, then shouldn’t testing be
required to fit similar parameters?
Does all this extreme testing, which subjects
students in specific age-groups to rigid academic evaluations, allow any room
for the nature of individual developmental processes? For that matter, does it
make room for the academic disparity determined by socio-economic privilege?
The term differentiation is
constantly being used as the measuring stick for classroom lesson plans, but
the children it is supposed to serve are the ones whose motivation and
self-esteem are destroyed when the “one-size-fits-all test” negates their
academic progress. Sadly, this makes me
wonder how many unique future artists, scientists, or inventors our oppressive,
educational testing regime will snuff out due to its rigid, irrational
agenda.
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3
I wonder how
many times Thomas Edison would have been denied promotion to the next grade
level, had he been in our current public school system. According to his
biography, “Thomas Edison attended public
school for a total of 12 weeks. A hyperactive child, prone to distraction, he
was deemed “difficult” by his teacher. His mother quickly pulled him from
school and taught him at home. At age 11, he showed a voracious appetite for
knowledge, reading books on a wide range of subjects. In this wide-open
curriculum Edison developed a process for self-education and learning
independently that would serve him throughout his life. © 2013 A+E Networks. All rights reserved."
I fear Edison’s curiosity for
exploration would have been held back by below average test scores, because as
a boy, his energies were channeled toward whatever piqued his interest, and children today have to focus on what's going to be on the test.
Then, there’s Albert Einstein, who probably would
have failed so many of our modern academic evaluations, that he would have lost
his unique curiosity for scientific investigation. A biographer writes, “Once
Albert learned to speak and got into school- he didn’t fit in – neither with
his fellow students nor with his teachers. Poor
Al. Simply put, he was rather odd. Fellow students viewed him as a freak
because they were obsessed with sports and he wasn’t interested at all. In
academics, his school emphasized rote memorization rather than creativity, and
he wasn’t good at rote learning.” Brian, Denis, Albert Einstein: A Life, 1996, John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
The one-test-fits-all mentality
which dominates the education system today shows no mercy to the kinesthetic
learner who needs hands-on learning experiences to excel academically, as well
as to express himself, along with a relaxed classroom environment for optimum
academic development. An article on the internet describes this unique type of
learner. “Kinesthetic learners
typically learn best by doing. They are naturally good at physical activities
like sports and dance. They enjoy learning through hands-on methods. They
typically like how-to guides and action-adventure stories. They might take
breaks from
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studying to get up and move around. Some may seem
fidgety, having a hard time sitting still in class.” Kinesthetic Learners, By Melissa Kelly, About.com Guide
Well known actor, Jim Carrey was one of these
kinesthetic style learners, but was also affected by socio-economic hardship
which is a factor responsible for the gap in academic gains for many struggling
students. For Carrey, it meant dropping out of high school: “When his father, an accountant, was
laid off, all the family's kids went to work to help make ends meet. Jim Carrey
worked as a janitor, and eventually dropped out of high school. The Carrey family lost their home and lived in a Volkswagen
van.”.© 2013 A+E Networks
Should a
one-size-fits-all test hold so much weight in determining a child’s future
success and whether he or she has a chance to move ahead, when the
circumstances and developmental processes which influence test performance are
so uniquely varied? If, according to David Glovin and David Evans, the evidence
of faulty testing practices was strong enough to rate publishing in Bloomberg
Markets, Dec. 2006, then,
why hasn’t the education profession lifted its voice to protect the students
who are so vulnerable to these errant and inequitable practices? These alarming
facts were published seven years ago! How much longer will this faulty system
continue to wreak havoc in the lives of America’s children?
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