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.
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| Garfield High School |
The
link bellow has a few more information about the boycott at Garfield High
School:
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