Thoughts about testing
Testing! As I review 10 years of questions for this column, I find recurring themes. Relationships, family issues, fear of pregnancy – these are consistent. Parents and adults may be surprised by another common topic: test anxiety. Spring brings rain, flowers and standardized testing.
Young people may also be surprised to discover adults aren’t fond of testing, either. Parents find their children’s tension challenging. Teachers feel they lose valuable class time.
Every year, I respond to these questions with support, reminding students to use tests as a way to “show off” their learning. My mama was a master at teaching, even though I was her only pupil. When she read me a book as a preschooler – a common occurrence – she’d smile when finished and ask, “Are you ready to play a game?” The game, she’d declare, was called a test. A test was just a chance to share what I remembered from the book. I credit her with my love of learning and lack of test anxiety.
Learning to relax, taking cleansing breaths, getting a good night’s sleep, eating well and exercising, and taking one question at a time are all hints for dealing with fear of testing. I asked some of our peer educators for their perspectives. What did they think of standardized tests? Here are their wise words:
• Siarra Demichele: The environment for big standardized tests is kind of lame. I either can’t sit still or fall asleep on accident. They ask for complete silence, so I’m afraid to even cough. The test measures how much you absorbed and learned in a year, and they make you take it in one day. That’s overwhelming.
• Elizabeth Gysi: Standardized tests measure two things: your knowledge of one specific area and your ability to sit still in boredom for a very long time. To a degree, they’re necessary to see what you know about a specific topic. But if that topic isn’t important to anything you’ll be doing in the future, I don’t think it really matters. They affect young people by making them feel inferior when they get a low score, simply because they couldn’t sit through the test long enough, didn’t care enough, weren’t interested or didn’t have the knowledge in the area to be tested. If they get a good score, it may make them feel superior to people who get lower scores. Honestly, I don’t like the tests.
• Toni Maurer: In my opinion, standardized tests measure a young person’s tolerance more than intelligence. In this day and age, our generation has lost the desire to care about testing. Our schools base our entire curriculum on these standardized tests, and kids just don’t care. Because young people don’t care, they’ll get low test scores, making themselves, their teachers and their school look bad. This affects us because it will cause us to be seen lower than we actually are. This is unfair to our teachers because they deserve to be seen as successful, as we are all meant to be. It is unfair for students to have a test be the guide to their life, determining intelligence. All students learn at a different pace, and standardized tests were never meant to be personalized to each individual student’s learning needs. Despite the negative comments, I think standardized testing can be very beneficial to those who do work their hardest. To all my fellow students: relax, study hard and kick these tests in the butt!
• Alivia Mongomery: Standardized tests affect children in good and bad ways. Most people I know are very stressed when it comes to those tests, yet some take it very easily. I personally don’t think a grade on a test should define you. If you pass or fail a standardized test, it shouldn’t determine if you’re smart or not! Some kids would be made fun of just because they didn’t do well on a test, but everyone learns and comprehends differently. Most people know the information, they just have a harder time writing it down on paper.
• Shelby Studt: I believe standardized test are great to see if a school district is teaching children correctly, but some students only study for the grades they get on the tests, instead of aiming to strengthen their knowledge. Also, testing is a major stress-out, studying and aiming to give the teachers and school what they want. The worst part is the anxiety tests put children through. I can imagine children being upset with themselves over a score on a test that the teacher didn’t even prepare them for until the last minute. It’s truly not a practical way to measure knowledge, in my opinion.
• Jacob I. Toth: I would say standardized tests measure fact retention, as opposed to critical analysis skills. Schools are encouraged to teach their students to retain facts and answer correctly, ignoring the processes behind coming to the correct answer. Part of this is due to how school funding is acquired – student performance on tests like the PSSAs determines some degree of funding.
• Maci Joelle Ward: Standardized tests only freak me out! I often stress over these tests to the point where it’s harder to take them. I get all good grades in school, but to think that these tests can mean more than my grades all year makes me nervous. I don’t think this is an effective way of learning.
Have a question? Send it to Dr. Mary Jo Podgurski’s email at podmj@healthyteens.com.