We continue this Education Matters conversation from where we left off, with high-stakes testing, with a look at the implication for students and their caregivers:

Teaching students to think?

In the last book written by famous children’s author Dr Seuss Hooray for Diffendoofer Day, he provides a stark contrast of two schools — Diffendoofer school and Flobbertown. In Diffendoofer, the teachers teach in unconventional ways and make learning fun. Flobbertown was far more regimented and students were not allowed to play. The day arrived when an important test was to be administered throughout the school district. The principal was quite worried. However, Mrs Bonkers, a favourite teacher reassured him that they might not have seemed as regimented as Flobbertown, but they taught the students many things and, most importantly, “We taught them how to think.” Needless to say, on the test, the students of Diffendoofer school received the highest possible scores.

Diffendoofer day reminds me of an era in schooling in Jamaica where people who could swot the content and reproduce it on paper were considered high achievers. There was little attention given to the thought processes of the learner and the relevance of the content knowledge to individual students. Some students will not see the relevance of remembering, as a child, who the minister of national security is (only to have to relearn it if there was a Cabinet reshuffle or change of Government). They might be far more interested in questioning the role, function and importance of the various ministries and how the existence of these ministries relate to them as citizens. Therefore, it is not surprising that some students perform better in classrooms, institutions where I could question, challenge and put their own perspectives on existing knowledge.

This brings me back to the question: Should the teacher teach to test or test to teach? There is nothing wrong when a teacher prepares students to pass tests. Testing is a reality in our educational existence which has some degree of permanence in our education system. However, it is often the obsession with testing that is worrying. Teachers need to teach students to be lifelong learners. For example,if they are teaching comprehension their role is not to get the student to know a passage inside out, but to be able to transfer the skills used to understand one passage, to other unfamiliar passages. In other words, teach students how to apply their knowledge to acquire new information and respond to unfamiliar tasks.

Parents and tests

My concern for obsession over testing is not confined to educators but also to parents who seem even more obsessed with the high-stakes testing. Some parents are so anxious about their children’s performance on high-stakes tests that they often rob the children of the developmental benefits of play by registering them in countless extra classes.

Test prep augmentation may provide parents with the psychological assurance that they are doing everything in their power to make their children achieve the highest possible scores in their tests. However, the competitive environment spawned by high-stakes testing often compromises wholesome social development of our children, since common courtesies and social skills are placed on the back burner in favour of high test scores. Later in life we discover that many of the essential values necessary for optimal functioning in society are compromised in favour for these test scores, and even though our children may have performed well on tests, they often struggle to navigate the social and emotional spheres of their everyday lives.

Harmonising teaching and testing

By now you may be forming the conclusion that I am opposed to testing. Are tests necessary? Of course, they are. They provide a compass for educators to estimate students’ strengths and weaknesses at the individual and collective levels. They also provide comparisons of performance across various schools and regions.

Should tests be the sole indicators of candidates’ potential or competencies in the world of work or for further education? Well, testing comes in many forms. If it is the traditional high-stakes standardised test (paper and pencil or computer-based), the answer is a resounding ‘no’. Many people have attained high test scores; however, that does not guarantee that they will be the better at putting what they have demonstrated on the test into practice.

Teaching should focus on lifelong learning, where learners are provided with the foundations and strategies for acquiring further knowledge. At the heart of the teaching learning experiences should be the students. It is prudent to teach the areas of the curriculum, but it has to be taught in a way that allows students to relate to what is taught and not limit them to only memorise, assimilate and produce answers on tests.

Policymakers also need to place less pressure on teachers about test results and emphasise the holistic development of children. It is important to take teachers beyond the test results by re-engaging in further teacher support activities (coaching, workshops on strategies that can help struggling and gifted learners, and other activities) in order to cater to learning needs of students.

In addition, they need to build on the initiatives to provide more specialised assessment for students with special needs, allowing educators to interpret assessment data and cater to students based on these results. Alternative forms of assessment should also be encouraged. Standardised tests should be one component in assessing students. An exploration of other viable alternatives of assessment is important to improving the learning experiences of our students.

I close with the example cited a the beginning. The Penwood experience and other episodes highlight the pervasive role of testing and examinations in our everyday lives. Beyond the surface issues of resolving a crisis by getting exam results it would be helpful to look beyond the results and examine our approach and attitudes toward testing.

Teachers should constantly aspire for exciting ways to make teaching and learning exciting, while being aware of the curriculum and testing requirements. There has to be a balancing act that makes provision for both. Policymakers also need to create avenues that provide less focus on testing and more on lifelong learning from early in the education cycle. There is an inescapable link between teaching and testing, the way we negotiate the teaching and testing experiences of our students will determine the quality education they receive.

In the quest for positive educational outcomes, we must also come to terms with the answer for the following question: Are we preparing our students to pass specific tests or are we preparing them to tackle real-life situations they may encounter on the job or in their everyday lives?

Clement T M Lambert, PhD, is an educational researcher, consultant, and lecturer in language arts education at The University of the West Indies. He leads the Communication and Arts Cluster and coordinates literacy studies at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Send comments to the Observer or clementtmlambert@gmail.com.