Thursday, February 7, 2013


MAP Tests
            

         On January of this year, the Garfield High School at Seattle and its teachers got the attention of America when they refused to apply a MAP standardized test to the students. The argument used to support that decision was that the high school teachers at Garfield were not against the evaluation of their students, but they do believe that the students’ progress must be analyzed by the content taught in class. The suggestions were also interesting, since that the teachers at Garfield High School were proposing the replacement of the standardized test for another types of evaluation.
           
         
         In my view, Garfield teachers are doing the right thing in asking for changes in the evaluation of their students. MAP tests emerged in a very different context in terms of education, and, since that time, things have changed significantly. The educational system did not follow those changes. The focus was always on making good workers and teaching then about how to survive in the industrialized world.
            
         The point is that every student has their own period of the day when they are more productive, has their favorite environment to learn and also every student learn in different ways and time then another. What the educational system is doing for a long time is to forget the differences and standardize the way that children learn by making patterns that must be follow by schools, students and teachers. In order to be able to get a good score in the MAP tests, the schools have to standardize the way of teaching, which means also the way that the students learn.
            
         Hopefully, the event on Garfield High School, will lead to changes in the educational system. Maybe in the future, the schools will not be seen as a boring place where every single children must go, but as a learning environment where every student would be able to choose when, where and what they want to learn. That way, teachers would just have to guide the kids to the right direction and send them to the best resources to learn. That way differences would be respected.
Garfield High School

         The link bellow has a few more information about the boycott at Garfield High School:
         - Under Pressure

No comments:

Post a Comment