There is a provocative article in Sunday's New York Times by Elisabeth Rosenthal about her children's experience being tested in at the Beijing International School. In part it looks at the different approaches to testing in the U.S. and China arguing that more frequent but perhaps less "high stakes" testing in the U.S. might benefit our schools.
It might surprise you to find out that I did agree with a few of her points — specifically one in which she wished that tests "felt like so many puzzles; not so much a judgement on your being but an interesting challenge."
Defined like this, I test children all of the time. This week, we even did several formal tests in math and spelling. Each time I explained that I wanted students to work alone and to do their best work so that I would know the best way to teach them. We laughed together at the idea of copying someone else's work because that would mean that I would teach you the wrong things. When children got stuck, I winked and smiled and said, "Thank goodness! Now I have something to teach you!"
Our small class size enables me to watch children and observe their learning with great detail. Most of what I need to know, I can glean from conversations or observations. These individual assessments are much more finely honed than any standardized test could be — the information I get is much more useful, too. (At some point, I'll share the saga of trying to find out from the state what constitutes "mathematical reasoning" – one of the data points from the MCA scores).
In sum, it is not true to say that we do not test students at Prairie Creek. We push them all the time to show us what they are able to do, posing interesting challenges and seeing how they respond. It's not even true to say that we don't use "tests" to assess children. What is true is that we think carefully about the assessment tools at our disposal and we use the most appropriate ones to learn about our children. We use them humanely and we use them in a way that helps students see their value.
The Rookery 
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