When I Think About Children . . .

 . . .I think about this quote from Johnny Depp and laugh.  Welcome to my world.

“When kids hit 1 year old, it's like hanging out with a miniature drunk. You have to hold onto them. They bump into things. They laugh and cry. They urinate. They vomit.” 
― Johnny Depp

Testing For Intelligence

            When assessing a child as a whole it is important to make sure they understand the basics.  Does the child know enough mental math and pre algebra to grocery store, complete household projects, balance a budget, cook, etc.  Can they read well enough to understand a legal document, a newspaper article, the label on a prescription bottle.  Do they understand enough science to know the impact of pollution on the environment, understand the impact of disruptions in the food chain, realize that to grow a tomato plant the plant needs sunlight etc.  basically, the basic book knowledge we should be testing for is the knowledge required for survival and everyday living.  outside of that, a child should be assessed on three things. 1)What do they want to do?  2)What are they good at?  3)How does their environment affect their opportunities to develop strengths and inadvertently aggravate weaknesses or gaps in learning?

            If you have a boy who can’t sit still, abhors homework, but loves to build things, instead of trying to force him into a box that is unnatural, he should be allowed to enter an apprenticeship program for construction or other trade.  If you have a girl who is a natural writer and artist and can create beautiful graphics on the computer, why re we focused on trying to make her learn advanced chemistry and calculus?  She doesn’t need it or want it.  Instead the focus should be on identifying where a child can and wants to fit into society and then developing them along that path.

            While visiting an Ammonite farm in Brazil run by a small community (this farm feeds nearly all of the country), the Minister of my religious organization asked the leader of this farming community what type of education its members received.  The Minister stated the man told him that their community members go to the eight grade and no more, but that  “we know how to count money very well.”  So this community of people run a national farming business but don’t go beyond the eight grade.  Is this because after the eight grade the basic reading, writing and math they need they have already learned and from then education is geared towards what they need to know of business, agriculture, accounting, etc in order to run their farm?  To me this seems to be a perfect system of education.

            As far as assessing children goes, task based assessment is, in my opinion, the most genuine form of assessment.  It asks students to apply what they know in real life circumstances to show learning.  In Africa at universities such as the University of Pretoria in South Africa, students entering tertiary education are assessed for their language literacy using a simple, 60 minute task based test that has been proven to be efficient and reliable.  “The test sets out to assess . . academic literacy in a number of task types . .” (Weideman, 2006)  that include identifying sentences from types of texts, restoring he original order of a scrambled paragraph and reading graphs. 

            In New Zealand, school aged children with special needs are being assessed by teachers using narrative assessment, a type of “learning story” I which the teacher writes an account of the child and his/her learning experiences throughout the day.  this allows the teacher to capture the child as a whole and explain how the child is using skills and thinking in the course of an entire day in order to show learning, rather than relying on a pen and paper test which might not accurately reflect the child.  “A string of one or more learning stories highlights the student’s learning in the key competency or competencies and the learning area(s).  Each learning story includes a section with next step suggestions for future teaching an learning.”  (Ministry of Education)

            I think these are both examples of assessing a child as a whole rather than according to a set group of learning standards which, frankly, I doubt actually apply to most children and the lives they are going to lead.

References

Weidemen, Albert. "Assessing Academic Literacy In A Task Based Approach." University of Pretoria, 2006. Web.

            "Narrative Assessment: A Guide for Teachers." New Zealand Ministry of Education, n.d. Web. 9 Oct. 2013. <http://www.throughdifferenteyes.org.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/57925/Narrative-Assessment_a-guide-for-teachers.pdf>.