Apparently, test anxiety is now considered brain damage.
Knowing that, students and parents alike take stock in what standardized tests mean and ponder their pros and cons...Specialists contend there’s scientific proof that standardized tests, and really all tests, can cause damage to the brain.
WHAT specialists? In what area? All possible tests? Are you kidding me? Some reporter thought this was a claim that could be dropped without any citation or support into an article about testing? Do they really think the readers will believe this nonsense?
I googled this topic for quite a while and came up with nothing but links to the standardized tests that are used to assess the extent of brain damage. Perhaps our specialists - or the reporter - are confused.
But there’s another possible side effect to standardized tests, according to one psychologist, that might undermine a child’s ability to learn."The byproduct of years of testing has caused students to believe that good grades are more important than understanding — that high scores rather than the cultivation of the mind is the purpose of schooling," said Nicky Hayes, editor of the journal Foundations of Psychology.
Is his point here that grades are independent of understanding? Because when it comes to grade inflation, I might believe him. But I'd like to know what his evidence is for the argument that high test scores are somehow not only uncorrelated with, but a block against, the cultivation of the mind.
Others say the education system relies more than ever on standardized tests that compare students to one another as the dominant assessment instrument.This tendency has forced teachers at all grade levels to "orient students to performance goals and comparative standards of excellence instead of internal mastery goals," says Scott Paris, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan.
Translation: We don't like tests with their objective standards for all kids, because it was much easier to teach students when all we had to do was get them to meet their own goals, as opposed to society's. I suppose "literacy" is something Paris would consider one of those evil "comparative standards of excellence."
The emphasis on external goals, Paris suggests, creates an unhealthy classroom scenario in which "standardized tests provoke considerable anxiety among students that seems to increase with their age and experience."
Really? Are students dropping out in droves rather than take tests or meet standards of any kind? Are they having panic attacks en masse? And if they were, wouldn't the fact that "experts" like Paris are trying to convince them that they are incapable of rising to the challenge of "external goals" have something to do with that lack of fortitude? Isn't his argument here that American students can't be expected to meet goals that push them beyond their specific comfort zone? That seems like quite an insult.
Update: Wow, that's a whole lotta brain damage.
Posted by kswygert at August 15, 2005 06:42 PM