Testing for Intelligence?

            Standardized testing has both positive and negative features and when used effectively can play a substantial role in improving the schooling of our young learners. Some individuals look at it as a great assessment tool while other teachers, parents, and students believe it causes too much stress on the child, and an educator now teaches for an examine. I believe it can be beneficial when determining what and when to teach students certain lessons and it also gives educators and parents a chance to see how the child is responding in the classroom to their new learning’s. When all children are taking the same exam, an educator can see a gap between students and could modify individual lessons. While I am not necessarily for standardized testing, I could understand why some professionals believe it is an excellent tool to assess their students. I think teachers can become very stressed knowing their class has to take a standardized test and they begin to teach for an exam. This, to me, takes the fun out of learning, you go over the same lessons, make sure all students are on the same page, and this can become very tiring for the students. Schools are put under so much pressure to get the best scores for their county and some districts will even go as far as reducing recess. As we have learned in the past, children learn a lot through play, and this can have negative impacts on their social and emotional well-being. I believe there needs to be some balance between our student’s success and a standardized exam. I don’t think this is the only tool that should tell a parent that their child is not up to speed or a teacher is not doing their job correctly. Constant assessments and observations on the class as a whole and individual students can allow for educators to see other ways their students have succeeded in the classroom.

            “Finland has vastly improved in reading, math and science literacy over the past decade in large part because its teachers are trusted to do whatever it takes to turn young lives around” (Hancock, 2011). Teachers are held to a high respect, just as doctors are held here in the United States. Students do not take an annual standardized test but instead the Finnish government occasionally tests random grades and students to make sure the country is meeting its education goals (Zhao, 2013). Finland reviews their progress through assessments and observations and the educator creates an exam for their students and decides the time that it should be taken. They have flexibility and are able to create an exam for the individual student to assess their progress. There was a paragraph written by LynNell Hancock in her article Why Are Finland’s Schools Successful that has really changed my outlook and wish that more individuals in our country would take such an interest in our students success.

“There are no mandated standardized tests in Finland, apart from one exam at the end of students’ senior year in high school. There are no rankings, no comparisons or competition between students, schools or regions. Finland’s schools are publicly funded. The people in the government agencies running them, from national officials to local authorities, are educators, not business people, military leaders or career politicians. Every school has the same national goals and draws from the same pool of university-trained educators. The result is that a Finnish child has a good shot at getting the same quality education no matter whether he or she lives in a rural village or a university town. The differences between weakest and strongest students are the smallest in the world, according to the most recent survey by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). “Equality is the most important word in Finnish education. All political parties on the right and left agree on this,” said Olli Luukkainen, president of Finland’s powerful teachers union” (Hancock, 2011).

Reference

Hancock, L. (2011, September). Why Are Finland's Schools Successful? Retrieved from

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-schools-successful-49859555/

Zhao, E. (2013, January 16). Standardized Testing A Foreign Concept In Finland With

World's Top Students. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/16/standardized-testing-a-fo_n_2145623.html