No child left thinking!!!

As I was searching to find out more about EQAO for my POP, I found this website. It seems there are lots of teachers who believe test does not cover all the aspects of learning. As it mentioned in the video, "we have a child in age 6, who has already learned they can't do school, so let's take them out of the one or two things that they actually can do sports, cartooning, whatever it might be, theater, and make sure they are only engage in the activity that they are already known they are failure at! and let's see how the scores improve!" This is scary for me in terms of being the child, the parent, or the educator.  

In addition, the economical influence of being chosen as a high rank school on the selling price of the house in the region is one of the worst outcome of the test result. According to yang in her article "But education experts warn against placing too much emphasis on EQAO scores when determining which schools — and neighborhoods — are 'best.' ".

What standardized tests don't measure

Assessment and High/Scope

According to Blandford & Knowles (2012) "Underpinned by a philosophy of ‘shared control’ (child and adult) and the idea of ‘encouraging’ rather than ‘praising’ children (Holt 2007), the high/scope curriculum acknowledges the impact of assessment on children’s motivation and self-esteem" (p.489). Based on my experience in high/scope, I believe the idea of encouraging rather than praising is very important in the assessment.   
To improve children’s confidence, they are encouraged based on their effort, so educators don’t praise them. The idea behind this behavior is that praise may lose its influence after a while; on the other hand, personal satisfaction will remain with the children forever. For example, instead of saying “Good Job!” which is a common phrase for every situation, they would say “You picked up lots of blocks today” which is specific to that activity. “Indeed, an impressive body of scientific research has shown that the more we reward people for doing something, the more they tend to lose interest in whatever they had to do to get the reward” (Kohn, 2001, p.3). Moreover, "Praising children may lead to one or more of these unintended results: children become addicted to praise, children learn that adult praise is insincere and is used to manipulate them, or children learn to fear failure and avoid challenges" (Gainsley, 2014). 
Furthermore, in high/scope children are able to discuss about their activities through "plan-do-review". Educators get to know about children's explorations, and  have the benefit of questioning and provoking children's mind to improve their knowledge during the day. "Its particular focus on "active learning" through plan-do-review activities (child-initiated), small group time and and large group time provide opportunity for children to discuss their learning with adults." (p.489)

What is Assessment in Early Childhood?

• What does “Assessment” mean in terms of being an educator?
• Do we make meaning about “the whole child” by questioning and/or observing children?
• Do we respect individualism by assessing children?
• What kind of assessment tools would be more beneficial for both children and educators to be used?
• What does assessment do in terms of being a child?
• Does the whole child and the family being considered in the assessment?
• Does it help children to get to know their interests and needs?

I have begun my journey to this course by those questions from both educators and children’s point of views. I believe assessment might standardize the way that children were expected to learn and could give them some guideline to improve themselves. On the other hand, it is not fair to assess everyone in a same way. Having pre-written assessment test at the center that I work made me think of the children who do not fit in the category of their own age. Specially, I could see the difference for children who are English learners. As Blandford and Knowles (2012) stated, “Each child is unique and the ongoing process of collecting evidence of learning, both formally and informally can be a challenge task for the practitioners” (P.491). Furthermore, the cultural difference plays a role in the children behaviors as well. For instance, some parents pay more attention to tangible outcome of learning. This has effect on their expectation and would change the dynamic of learning toward that. In addition, we had some discussion about “DAP” last semester which made me really think about assessment practices and if it is the best practice. As Paki& Caulcutt (2011) stated, “Many have criticized DAP by questioning the ethnocentricity in the assessments' view of what is typical child development” (p. 37).

Reading this week articles have changed my negative perspective of assessment. As Blandford and Knowles (2012) described, “In practice, AFL [Assessment For Learning] means children and practitioners working together to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go and how best to get there” (p.488). I have also done the brief research about the children who are English learners. My research showed, the second language learners might have some delay in their learning, but most of them would meet their developmental stages.

I believe, in the situation of being an educator, not a specialist, some children may need more time to transfer to the next developmental stage, so the timing should be used as sign to investigate and assess the child’s development. The result of assessment might be/not be applicable for individual. According to Luna & Heimer (2012), “Creative Curriculum also supports a range of teaching approaches,…, offers advice for how to adapt instruction to different types of learners, including those with special needs, gifted children, and second language learners. [it] guides teachers to use naturalistic forms of assessment which directly contribute to supporting individual learning as well as to program evaluation” (p.125). We also know, the best result would be found when the family and the educators work together to foster children’s learning.