Testing for Intelligence

This week in class we focused on the middle childhood age group of development. Our blog assignment calls us to think about and debate the pros and cons of testing children, a topic that I feel strongly about as I think there are many ways it could be handled and implemented yet we are doing it in a stressful, inconsistent, and frustrating way for the children. We are asked to consider the "whole child" and determine what should be measured or assessed, if anything, and compare the way this happens in the United States as compared to another country in the world. I have chosen to compare the United States' methods on this topic to those of South Korea to see the similarities and differences in their methods, as well as their results, to see which is more effective and appropriate, if any. Since this topic is something that hits home for me being a fourth grade teacher in a testing year, I am interested and eager to share my thoughts, input, and gathered information in this post. I apologize in advance for the length of this post as this is something I do feel very strongly about and hope that we can begin to implement appropriately, keeping in mind the best interest of the children we work with in our field!

One of the new "hot topics" in education is making sure to view the child holistically or understand the "whole child" in order to properly provide the appropriate educational opportunities for each individual child. Many researchers who believe in working with/for the "whole child" are against standardized testing to assess children as they feel it does not accurately portray ability, knowledge, and growth; however, our country is an educational system in which standardized testing is promoted and incorporated into our educational system and held to high standards. Being a fourth grade teacher in a testing year, I witness what my students go through during testing time each year. I witness the frustration, the anxiety, the stress, the defeatedness, the exhaustion, and the tears. I see my students struggle with concepts they worked so hard in all year long because they feel overwhelmed, stressed, or forget what one word means or simply run out of time. It is a devastating process to witness and my heart goes out to them each and every year. In my mind, standardized tests are one small piece to the puzzle of understanding a child and their learning, growth, and development. As educators we should be using multiple measures to truly understand each individual child within our classroom and best service their needs individually to provide them with every possible opportunity for success in the classroom. These multiple measures should not have to include such high stakes testing, testing in which the state and country will base our academic progress off of. Suppose one child loves math class and all year long they are a leader in math, receiving A's, working hard, challenging themselves to enrichment activities and enjoying every moment! Then, come May, they take the standardized state test and they do horribly - maybe because they were nervous, they were worried about the time or ran out of time, etc. This child now does not pass or perform at the necessary level of proficiency as required by the state or country so they are now considered to be in need of assistance in math the following year to remediate their skills prior to taking the test again in May. Realistically, this child does NOT struggle in math, they struggle with HIGH STAKES HIGH PRESSURED TESTING! This is why I feel we should assess and measure a child's abilities and knowledge and progress throughout the school year very often, yet do it in ways that are NOT pressured as standardized tests are. There are SO many ways to assess and measure the progress of a child, without the child feeling like they are under the microscope and making mistakes because they are becoming more and more anxious and nervous. I do believe in multiple measures; I do believe in assessment; however, I believe in both being implemented and utilized appropriately and effectively to best help the educators decipher the individual needs of each student to make this educational experience the best it could possibly be!

After researching the world wide educational rankings, I noticed that South Korea was listed as number 1 or 2 in every ranking. This piqued my interest and curiosity as I noticed that the United States was ranked 14th, 17th, or much lower in several different rankings. I was eager to learn more about the education system in South Korea as compared to the United States and see what they implement in terms of assessment, standardized testing, and overall outlook and experiences for the field of education. Upon completing my research of South Korean education, I was surprised to learn just how different they operate their educational system in comparison to the United States. In South Korea, schooling begins with primary school for children ages 6-12 (6 years), followed by junior secondary school for children ages 12-15 (3 years), and then senior secondary school for children ages 15-18 (3 years). When they are ready for senior secondary or senior high school, they can choose three different options, all of which will be paid for but in a very affordable manner so that most children do attend. The three options are: General Academic High Schools, Vocational/Technical High Schools, and Specialty/Specialist High Schools. The National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) provides detailed information about South Korean education systems, policies, and more, including curriculum when stating, "South Korean schools are provided a national curriculum framework developed by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST)," (2013, www.ncee.org).

What I found to be most interesting about their education system was the idea of assessment and how it was implemented into their successful educational system. "South Korea has a system of diagnostic assessments called the National Assessment of Educational Achievement (NAEA)," (NCEE, 2013). This assessment is given to students in sixth, ninth, and tenth grade only and "serve a purely informational purpose and are not reported by individual student," (NCEE, 2013). This diagnostic assessment is NOT a high stakes standardized test but simply a measure of student achievement overall for that age group/grade level to assess progress and content for that group. This is just one way assessment differs from the United States. In addition, South Korea required teachers to regularly assess students at all age and grade levels each school year. However, this again differs from the United States. When assessed each year, students "receive "Student School Records" or "Student Activity Records" which provide detailed information about their academic performance. These records include information on academic achievement by subject, attendance, extra-curricular and service involvement, special accomplishments, conduct and moral development, physical development, details of awards and anecdotal performance descriptions," (NCEE, 2013). This is far and away a huge difference between the United States and South Korea; the assessment listed above is the MAIN form of assessment and is based on the progress and measures noted by the teacher throughout the year in the classroom. This means that students are not exposed to high stakes testing at all in South Korea until they are preparing for college or university acceptance, in which they may have to take a test similar to the SAT's to be accepted. Until that moment, students are not exposed to such a stressful requirement. In my opinion, this is one of the many ways the South Korean educational system is ranked number 1 in the world! High stakes testing should not be a crucial part of our educational assessments and it is plain to see that a nation can be extremely successful in education by not utilizing such a measure.

All in all, I am not opposed to assessing and measuring children's progress, as long as it is utilized and implemented appropriately for the children in the classroom. Learning about education in South Korea motivates me to want to make changes in our education system for the better. I wish there could be a way to eliminate high stakes testing, as it seems unnecessary and irrelevant. I think we should focus more on multiple measures we can complete within the classroom with our students to assess their progress day to day all year long. I love the idea of an overall achievement record as South Korea utilizes because it truly helps you to understand the "whole child" and how to best help them from one year to the next in their school experiences. I am positive and hopeful that our country and my state will someday move to such practices as we start to see more and more evidence that standardized testing is more destructive than beneficial to our students, our children, our future.




References:

National Center on Education and the Economy. (2013, October 11). South Korea: Instructional systems. Retrieved from http://www.ncee.org/programs-affiliates/center-on-international-education-benchmarking/top-performing-countries/south-korea-overview/south-korea-instructional-systems/.