The Mascot of NDY Industries is Keepin' On

The Mascot of NDY Industries is Keepin' On

Friday 8 December 2017

Testing in shools

A fine writer (Mr. Rick Salutin) recently wrote about several issues facing teachers, students and school administrators. Among them was the regular debate about whether standardized testing in our schools was a good thing or a bad thing.

The conclusion of his December 7th article regarding standardized testing posited that: "What you've truly learned (as a student faced with an exam) counts zero..." I disagree. 

My colleagues and I grew up facing regular standardized testing, departmental FINAL exams at the end of high school and annual exams in University. This encouraged/demanded full and thoughtful review of the year's material - no one really knew what would be on the exam. Material review deepened fact retention and thinking about the subject. In some cases, the "forced" study led to a eureka moment when I finally came to understand something in the material that I had not really fathomed during the course. Writing exams taught us how to prepare and study for a big event, meet deadlines and deal with the related pressure. Good traits as one goes out in the real world. How else is one to learn how to prepare for the test of a job interview, how to research, write and deliver a speech, make a sales pitch, craft a policy proposal to government? Life is a series of exams; some are harder than others and some have more significance...but  you can't avoid them. Learning how to synthesize and evaluate the information that may be needed to pass them and actually delivering it is a very valuable skill. Get used to doing it early and often is what I suggest. Even if you fail the odd one; learning to deal with that is another great talent. You may even turn out to be a successful entrepreneur!