When I Think of Child Development...

Infants and young children are not just sitting twiddling their thumbs, waiting for their parents to teach them to read and do math. They are expending a vast amount of time and effort in exploring and understanding their immediate world. Healthy education supports and encourages this spontaneous learning
David Elkind

"Free the child's potential, and you will transform him into the world."

- Maria Montessori

"The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows."

- Sydney J. Harris                       

Testing For Intelligence

 

I believe that it is important to view young children holistically by viewing “the whole child”. Young children develop rapidly and their parents/support systems are their first teachers. When children enter school they bring their experiences and culture with them. It is important to recognize children’s cultures and build upon their knowledge and experiences.  Since young children are advancing through various developmental stages and domains I think it is essential to measuring their progress. To ensure children are meeting milestones and provide support for children that may be delayed. It is also essential to monitor children’s learning to drive instruction and diagnose learning or developmental problem to provide a plan to meet their needs.

I decided to continue to learn about various aspects of Africa and their culture therefore, I decided to learn how school age children are assessed in Africa.  In Africa there has been a long two decade effort to improve the quality of their education systems through the use of assessments. School age children are assessed in four categories of assessments; public examinations, national assessments, international assessments, and classroom assessments.  Public examinations have a long standing in Africa’s education system, it is geared towards assessing the level of students’ achievement and cognitive processing skills. One benefit is different methods are used to test higher order of thinking skills academically and in situations outside of school. The results drive the teaching practices and expectations.  A disadvantage to the assessment is many of the teaching practices are centered on the exam. Quality of education may suffer because learning is limited to only what is being assessed. National assessments are fairly new in Africa but spread throughout the nation to focus on the success of sub groups instead of individual children. It is designed to measure learning achievements among sub groups and inequalities in the education system. One benefit of national assessments is that it is policy oriented which provides information to policy makers to improve the education system. One disadvantage of national assessments is the data is rarely used to influence the government or education reform in many countries in Africa. International assessments are very similar to national assessment but it compares students’ achievement and education systems with more than one country. A disadvantage is not many African countries participate in international assessments. But the data from the national assessment can be used in many cases to evaluate students’ success internationally. Last but not least, classroom assessments are ongoing and monitor children’s behavior, educational performance and response to instruction. It is designed to evaluate children’s current knowledge, understanding, and skills. Also it identifies problems children may have and evaluate the learning taking place in the classroom. A disadvantage is some teaching practices lack higher order cognitive skills and children are reciting from memory oppose to reflecting on knowledge.

  Many schools systems in Africa hope to replace public examinations with school based assessments. They believe that the only ways to authentically assess students’ achievement are with assessments specified to education systems curriculums. But the problem they face is motivating the teachers to effectively change their practices. Teachers are afraid it will drastically change the schools’ culture and students’ success will be at risk. Many believe that any efforts made to reform Africa’s education system will be in vain if the teachers are not willing to understand the benefits of improving children’s success.   Change is a part of life and “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”- Ghandi  

I believe that it is important to assess children’s development and learning. I also think it is equally important to monitor and assess schools and programs to ensure they are providing children the best education and services possible.

References:
http://toolkit.ineesite.org/toolkit/INEEcms/uploads/1089/Monitoring_Performance_Assessment_Examinations.pdf
http://quotations.about.com/od/stillmorefamouspeople/a/MahatmaGandhi1.htm