In early childhood, children should be assessed but not measured on their ability to do something. I feel that they should be assessed on the 5 developmental domains which are fine motor, gross motor, social/emotional, language and cogntive. I also feel that the satndarized test are good to see what a child knows but it shouldn't determine big milestones in a child's life such as graduation or entering college. A test doesn't always your abilities and strengths. Someone may be a good test taker and another person may not be. For example, in high school I was a student who made A's and B's and my cousin was a student who made A's, B's, C's and D's. She was a nonchalant person when it came to taking a standarized test and I was nervous during that time. We both took the GHSGT which is the Georgia High School Graduation Test and she passed all of her test. I didn't pass Science or Social Studies. This is an example of good test takers and bad test takers. I currently have test anxiety and I get nervous when taking a timed test.
School-aged children are assessed all over the world and the country that I'm interested in getting information about is Japan. In Japan, children are assessed and measured in school. The focus of Japanese parents and teachers is to prepare students for two important tests: one at the end of ninth grade, which determines whether a student goes to a vocational school, a first-rate public college-preparatory high school, a second rate high school or an expensive private school; and another at the end of the 12th grade to gain entrance to university. This is similar to the schools in the US. Also, national achievement tests are given to primary school sixth graders and third year middle school students. In some cases, the test require students to not only give an answer but their calculations.
When it comes to children being assessed, one of my big concerns is giving the smaller children test. When they are four to eight years old, I feel that they don't understand how important it is when comes to taking standardized tests so it shouldn't be measured.
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I am just like you when it comes to taking tests especially standardized tests, I get very nervous. I agree with you that young children don't necessarily understand how important these tests are and we should not put so much weight on what these test scores outcome is.
ReplyDeleteI agreed with your comments in your post. I get very nervous when it comes to taking state tests, too. Young children should not be exposed to such pressure these standardized tests bring. Their minds are not ready to handle such a huge responsiblity at such a young age.
ReplyDeleteTalae
@Fawn and Talaw, well you ladies know that its not a good feeling at all. Young children should not put in this situation until they understand the importance of it. I procrastinate when it comes to taking time test. I'm suppose to go and take my insurance test to get my license and I haven't done it yet because I'm nervous. I'm just going to have to schedule it and just go. :-) Thanks for sharing that with me.
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