Testing. Assessments. Data. It's all we ever hear about education these days. It's amazing to me how much focus is placed on measuring children's development, yet so little emphasis is placed on the process of learning. At least that's how it seems when looking at educating young children from the American public's perspective.
If you think about childhood, development and learning, everything leads back to one simple skill: problem solving. Whether it's a child's ability to solve the problem of stress management, or simple to solve a mathematical equation for their daily homework; a child's ability to navigate through whatever tasks or challenges that might be presented is the very best way to measure the quality and growth of a child's development.
I always find myself stumbling upon research produced in Finland, outlining why their educational system is far superior than the education system in the United States. In an article shared with the National Educators Association in 2010. One of the common facts stated throughout the article, is how Finland continues to avoid the common practice of evaluation and assessment. Rather, the country builds the quality of their programs based on the universal access to resources, teacher preparation, and quality individualization of programs for students requiring extensive supports. It makes so much sense: spend the time and efforts providing opportunities for growth, education, and improvements in the areas of student growth and practitioner growth (educators and educational professionals). By doing so, children are given more opportunities to grow and learn in more well rounded ways- with time to grow socially and emotionally, in turn increasing their academic success later in life.
Resources
Darling-Hammon, L. (2010). Steady Work: Finland Builds a Strong Teaching and Learning System. Rethinking Schools, Volume 24, Number 4. Retrieved from http://www.nea.org/home/40991.htm
Problem solving is key to their development. Children obtain so many stressors, it may allow them to not do so well on test and they have low performances.
ReplyDeleteFinland is really advanced in education. Thankyou for sharing this information. In China, examination is always the way to measure and assess the children abilities and capabilities. All the focuses of schools, teachers and parents are on examination and how to ensure the children get the best grades. Since competition is strong to get into a good and reputable academic school, all children are forced to get supplementary classes to ensure they are being tutored so that they can get good grades for their examination. Poor children in China!
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