Changing The Language From Anti-Testing To Pro-Whole Child
I like getting into discussions with people who like saying “Jose, why are you against testing?”
Let me lay out the argument and the reason why, instead of referring to myself as anti-testing, I’m calling myself pro-whole-child.
The argument is that testing isn’t bad. We should have experts who look at the lay of the education land, help set standards for what children ought to learn at every grade, and then help develop assessments that help us get a glimpse as to whether students learned that material. Testing seems more stable, and less prone to error since these guys spend their working hours on developing precise problems and test them on children and adults to make certain that the problems absolutely mean to assess what they mean to assess. Plus, having these common assessments between grade levels could make for interesting longitudinal studies and provide critical feedback for teachers, parents, and students about student and teacher performance.
I hope I got that right because, as it turns out, I think there’s something inherently wrong with this.
To a certain extent, I do agree with having a viable, thorough curriculum from K-12 that expands on content knowledge, helps students question, and goes beyond teaching students how to multiply in high school. Often, it’s the students in the lower-income brackets that get tossed into the least