Personally, I can't say that I have read "a lot" about evaluation, what it means, where we get our standards from, or even about the "philosophy" behind it. Having said that, I want my readers to know that even though I might not be fully literate in the subject, I have begun to form opinions about it.
Largely, it seems to me that our overall goals in education are misleading (at the surface level), and inaccurate at the practical level. Allow me to explain. Patricia Carini, the founder of the Prospect Center, has said "Until as educators and citizens we make room and time and educational arrangements that allow us to recognize, value, and draw forth this dimension of the children we educate, we will continue to be overwhelmed by their variety and diversity (Starting Strong, 2001; p171). " The statement "this dimension" refers to the individual talents and creativity of students, or the ability of expression given to each human being. In school, we cram everyone into the same mold and expect standardized results. If one thing has been proven throughout history, it's that people are not "standard" and that EVERY human that has lived is an individual. In support, I'd like to quote Catherine Luna from her essay in the Journals of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 45:7, entitled: "Learning from Diverse Learners".
"A flexible, responsive pedagogy based on an educational discourse that values diversity may help us accommodate a wide range of students' abilities, and thus avoid the need for labeling and for special treatment. Tn addition, by interpreting our students' academic difficulties not as symptoms of their individual failings but as indicators that we need to examine tile teaching and learning in our classrooms, educators can take responsibility for and work to interrupt tile silencing cycle of narrow norm and academic failure that these students' stories reveal."
Where does this take us? I believe that the grading system is indeed flawed. However, I find it EXTREMELY difficult to say that we have to incorporate EVERY individual's particular learning abilities into an individually tailored education. It requires so much work, so much time--and in the end, a lot of money. Both Luna and Carini in their thought process strictly challenge the status quo, and even go as far as to mention things such as allowing a student to present a piece of artwork rather than a paper as a final presentation of what she has learned (Luna, page 601). Though this really displays the creativity and thought of the student, and might in fact have significant meaning to her, it does not accurately define her thoughts and understanding to others in a definite fashion.
Moving forward, we've also read pieces by Lisa Delpit, again, and from another author, Asa Hilliard; both of whom challenge the general understanding behind the grading process. What defines basic vocabulary, word difficulty, and reading comprehension at a yearly level (The Skin That We Speak, 2007; p. 98)? A very valid claim, might I add!
It all comes to a point--that it seems as though the further into the future we have come as a country, and as a Western conglomerate of nations, the more we box things and label them in order to deal with the ensuing diversity that human growth naturally produces. That this happens in schools is both understandable, and unfortunate. P. David Pearson, in Adolescent Literacy, 2007, has formulated a table showing the "clients" of our American education system (Adolescent Literacy, 2007; p. 262). It has three columns, naming client, decisions/questions, and assessment tools. For instance, for policy makers: how well are our students meeting public expectations? Assess by looking at trends, over time, on aggregated data--norm referrenced tests are fine. For taxpayers: how well is our money spent on education? Assess by trends and aggregated data over time--standardized tests again.
So what we have in the end is a battle between the individualist ideal of making sure students are learning--which can only be achieved through dedicated teachers will little constraint to meet political expectations--and the social concern of whether or not policy and tax dollars are properly implemented and spent. Parents and teachers know if students are learning--because they are directly associated with the students--but the subjects and the "box" that we define as "important" is not necessarily where a particular student truly flourishes and has the ability to enrich the human populace.
Fundamentally, I believe that our education system is "okay", but needs to find a more individualistic method of grading that can still meet the needs of parents, administrators, and taxpayers. Furthermore, I believe that we must CHANGE the way we think about success in schools. What has happened to the understanding that one may not be gifted in sciences, but can be a very talented "and proud" tradesman (which may indeed incorporate some science)? Or, as Sir Ken Robinson illustrated in a short thesis he presented for TED, that a young girl might not be abnormal in behavior, but a dancer--and she went on to have an illustrious career in the Royal Ballet, to coreograph "CATS" and marry Andrew Lloyd Weber. We get so fixated on core classes and subject material that we miss the potential in students to change the world. That, I find, is unacceptable, and must be amended.
"A flexible, responsive pedagogy based on an educational discourse that values diversity may help us accommodate a wide range of students' abilities, and thus avoid the need for labeling and for special treatment. Tn addition, by interpreting our students' academic difficulties not as symptoms of their individual failings but as indicators that we need to examine tile teaching and learning in our classrooms, educators can take responsibility for and work to interrupt tile silencing cycle of narrow norm and academic failure that these students' stories reveal."
Where does this take us? I believe that the grading system is indeed flawed. However, I find it EXTREMELY difficult to say that we have to incorporate EVERY individual's particular learning abilities into an individually tailored education. It requires so much work, so much time--and in the end, a lot of money. Both Luna and Carini in their thought process strictly challenge the status quo, and even go as far as to mention things such as allowing a student to present a piece of artwork rather than a paper as a final presentation of what she has learned (Luna, page 601). Though this really displays the creativity and thought of the student, and might in fact have significant meaning to her, it does not accurately define her thoughts and understanding to others in a definite fashion.
Moving forward, we've also read pieces by Lisa Delpit, again, and from another author, Asa Hilliard; both of whom challenge the general understanding behind the grading process. What defines basic vocabulary, word difficulty, and reading comprehension at a yearly level (The Skin That We Speak, 2007; p. 98)? A very valid claim, might I add!
It all comes to a point--that it seems as though the further into the future we have come as a country, and as a Western conglomerate of nations, the more we box things and label them in order to deal with the ensuing diversity that human growth naturally produces. That this happens in schools is both understandable, and unfortunate. P. David Pearson, in Adolescent Literacy, 2007, has formulated a table showing the "clients" of our American education system (Adolescent Literacy, 2007; p. 262). It has three columns, naming client, decisions/questions, and assessment tools. For instance, for policy makers: how well are our students meeting public expectations? Assess by looking at trends, over time, on aggregated data--norm referrenced tests are fine. For taxpayers: how well is our money spent on education? Assess by trends and aggregated data over time--standardized tests again.
So what we have in the end is a battle between the individualist ideal of making sure students are learning--which can only be achieved through dedicated teachers will little constraint to meet political expectations--and the social concern of whether or not policy and tax dollars are properly implemented and spent. Parents and teachers know if students are learning--because they are directly associated with the students--but the subjects and the "box" that we define as "important" is not necessarily where a particular student truly flourishes and has the ability to enrich the human populace.
Fundamentally, I believe that our education system is "okay", but needs to find a more individualistic method of grading that can still meet the needs of parents, administrators, and taxpayers. Furthermore, I believe that we must CHANGE the way we think about success in schools. What has happened to the understanding that one may not be gifted in sciences, but can be a very talented "and proud" tradesman (which may indeed incorporate some science)? Or, as Sir Ken Robinson illustrated in a short thesis he presented for TED, that a young girl might not be abnormal in behavior, but a dancer--and she went on to have an illustrious career in the Royal Ballet, to coreograph "CATS" and marry Andrew Lloyd Weber. We get so fixated on core classes and subject material that we miss the potential in students to change the world. That, I find, is unacceptable, and must be amended.
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