Yesterday, as I prepared to walk out my office door to cheer my 3rd graders to success on the OCCT Reading Language Arts assessment I read the editorial in the Daily Oklahoman from the NewsOk.com website. The article, Anxiety Over Third Grade Reading is a Red Herring, asserts that there is no such thing as test anxiety. The only time there is anxiety, in the views of the author, is when the test taker is not prepared for the assessment. Many times I have read about anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal or not, it is a legitimate concern and not related to preparation and understanding the material.
I witnessed a student yesterday that is probably one of the brightest students in his grade have a meltdown yesterday. This student very likely will score advanced on the test. He was prepared for the assessment. He was in tears yesterday, frozen with just a few questions remaining.
When a person reaches this point of stress it takes them quite a while to reach a point in which they can think clearly. What do you think his results will be?
How do we keep this from happening in a world of unwarranted high stakes testing? There is no way we can completely prevent it without totally eliminating the tests. When we eliminate the high stakes/post mortem exams and create more accurate measures of assessment that take all aspects of a student's academic profile into consideration, we will always deal with test anxiety.
There are measures on the table to eliminate some of the tests that are not federally mandated. There are people working tirelessly to keep these from becoming law. Those in opposition to the legislation claim that if we eliminate the tests then teachers won't teach the content. I agree. Teacher's won't teach the content, they will teach more. They will go above and beyond because they will have the freedom to go deeper into topics and cover concepts not usually introduced. Teacher's will no longer be shackled to the few items that can be measured on a multiple choice test.
If you read the article, you could spot many of the illogical leaps made by the author. If you would like a little more detail there is an excellent post by fellow a blogger at okeducationtruths about it.
On the flipside, when I did walk out my office yesterday morning, I found a wonderful scene. All of the third grade teachers were lining the sidewalks around our campus. Each of them there to display a sign or cheer on our students arriving to test that day. They also decorated the windows and sidewalks with inspirational messages for the students. The second grade students decorated guitars and posted them all around the third grade building telling them to "Rock the Test." The cooks prepared a breakfast voted on by the third grade students and made sure that each of them were well fed before starting the assessments. All of the students not testing formed a victory tunnel for them to run through on their way to class.
All of these were done to encourage and assure students that they know what they need to know in order to succeed on the test. I am glad that none of them are subscribers to the DOK and don't read the editorials on then NewsOk website.
Everytime I see an article like this it reminds me why I will not subscribe to that paper again.
I witnessed a student yesterday that is probably one of the brightest students in his grade have a meltdown yesterday. This student very likely will score advanced on the test. He was prepared for the assessment. He was in tears yesterday, frozen with just a few questions remaining.
When a person reaches this point of stress it takes them quite a while to reach a point in which they can think clearly. What do you think his results will be?
How do we keep this from happening in a world of unwarranted high stakes testing? There is no way we can completely prevent it without totally eliminating the tests. When we eliminate the high stakes/post mortem exams and create more accurate measures of assessment that take all aspects of a student's academic profile into consideration, we will always deal with test anxiety.
There are measures on the table to eliminate some of the tests that are not federally mandated. There are people working tirelessly to keep these from becoming law. Those in opposition to the legislation claim that if we eliminate the tests then teachers won't teach the content. I agree. Teacher's won't teach the content, they will teach more. They will go above and beyond because they will have the freedom to go deeper into topics and cover concepts not usually introduced. Teacher's will no longer be shackled to the few items that can be measured on a multiple choice test.
If you read the article, you could spot many of the illogical leaps made by the author. If you would like a little more detail there is an excellent post by fellow a blogger at okeducationtruths about it.
On the flipside, when I did walk out my office yesterday morning, I found a wonderful scene. All of the third grade teachers were lining the sidewalks around our campus. Each of them there to display a sign or cheer on our students arriving to test that day. They also decorated the windows and sidewalks with inspirational messages for the students. The second grade students decorated guitars and posted them all around the third grade building telling them to "Rock the Test." The cooks prepared a breakfast voted on by the third grade students and made sure that each of them were well fed before starting the assessments. All of the students not testing formed a victory tunnel for them to run through on their way to class.
All of these were done to encourage and assure students that they know what they need to know in order to succeed on the test. I am glad that none of them are subscribers to the DOK and don't read the editorials on then NewsOk website.
Everytime I see an article like this it reminds me why I will not subscribe to that paper again.
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