Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.  ~Saint-Exupéry,The Little Prince, 1943

Do not train children to learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.
Plato

 
Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
~Author: B F Skinner “Education in 1984” New Scientist 21 May 64

Testing

I do not agree with standardized testing by itself. There are so many learning styles and sometimes students will choke when it comes to test taking. I feel that if we are going to measure a child’s progress we do need to take into account the whole child and test in a variety of ways. In our school we do have several methods of assessment. If older grades such as Kindergarten and up did not look for certain characteristics upon enrollment maybe we could refrain from assessing. As it stands they do, so we have to consider our students readiness, which does require assessment. We have CPAA a program on the computer that the children see as a game. It assesses and tells us where they stand as well as gives us information on how to supplement the weaker areas. We also use developmental guidelines as a key and provide anecdotal and photo evidence of progress. I don’t think one type of testing will cut it. I think we have to try a variety of styles on every child and look at the cumulative

I looked at student testing in Australia and discovered that one tool they use in assessment is the Student Motivation Tool. This assessment measures motivation boosters and motivation guzzlers. This assessment is meant to determine which students are at risk of disengagement or underachievement.

I think that the standardized assessments used in the United States are just too narrow and do not take into account the varied learning styles and unique intelligence of children.

(October 1^st, 2009). Motivation and Engagement Across the Academic Life Span: A        

     Developmental Construct Validity Study of Elementary School, High School, and   

      University/College Student. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 69: 794-824