Would you like to receive publication updates from HLT? You can by joining the free mailing list today. |
Humanising Language Teaching
Year 5; Issue 1; January 03
Students against Testing
What follows is taken from the above US website and articulates real anxiety and anger about the proliferation of exams and tests since the politicians decided that everything in education should be measured, including what is immeasurable.
( If you want to hear the voice of a saddened UK A level student , go to Student Voices, HLT May 2002 where an 18 year-old writer, Richard Green, describes how the plethora of exams and tests he has to take has robbed him of his pleasure in studying. The title of the piece is: I have been robbed of the chance to enjoy my subjects. )
The www.nomoretests.com site articulates a call for social action to resist current exam mania. Here is their mission statement:
Students against Testing ,SAT, is a nationwide network of young people who resist high stakes standardised testing and support real-life learning.
( SAT also stands for Standard Achievement Test )
On the site you will find a page with
10 Reasons to oppose Standardized Tests
1. Tests stop learning
The new standardized curriculum requires more teachers to spend more time in Jeopardy-like rote environment in which they cover more and more information on a shallower level. The large amount of time dedicated to test-prep in schools leaves little time for class discussion, critical thinking, group projects, or other creative curriculum approaches. The new wave of testing is killing our children's creativity, and replacing real life thinking with artificial achievement.
2. Tests are big business
3. Tests separate students by their parents' income
4. Test companies are inaccurate and insecure
5. Tests don't solve any of education's problems
6. Tests hurt the poor and people of color
7. Tests are a waste of time and money
8. Tests place too much emphasis on one single examination
9. Tests breed stress and depression
10. Tests turn schools into stock markets
We are quickly creating schools where students are only numbers and schools are
only factories. In California the Stanford 9 require children as young as seven to
sit through ten straight days of multiple choice testing, where teachers can get up
to a $25,000 bonus and top-scoring students can earn a $2500 college
scholarship, depending on the scores. At an earlier and earlier age, students are
being bribed by financial success and threatened by permanent failure over
single tests as more and more States make the stakes higher and higher. In the
words of Albert Einstein:
" Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything
that can be counted counts."
( to see the full text of the 10 reasons, go to the www.nomoretests.com site.)
