Unfortunately, I’ve been having what seems to be endless conversation about test scores lately. At work the meetings are countless- what our scores are, where we need to be, who to target, etc. etc. etc.
On Twitter the other day I engaged in a conversation around whether national standards are needed. In short, my answer was no since I fear that this will only lead to some inane national exam, which will undoubtedly measure one type of intelligence- good old paper and pencil.
My problem with the America’s ongoing fascination with standardized tests is this- how do you measure:
* collaboration
* critical thinking
* problem- solving
* curiosity
* artistic/musical intelligence
The answer- you can’t. It’s really that simple. My 8th graders in this photo are engaged in a design project in which they are required to do all of the above things are more. They’re designing a real project for a real- world reason. If their product is chosen by Mark Ecko, their t-shirt design has the possibility of being sold in stores across the world. The lessons they’re learning about design, marketing, economics, branding, etc are invaluable and traditionally not addressed in classroom. Tell me, how do you measure this??
YES! Every other meeting is about the scores. There are so many different types of learners out there. I was one of them I. HS. I vowed to never force my round peg students into square assessments all of the time. I get worried every time my state,MI, changes the testing and then cuts funding, but that is a topic for another post.
Fantastic… That is what I mean when I say education is about the transfer of learning, not the regurgitation of facts and dates. What they learned is real, meaningful, and applicable to the real world. Bravo!