Category: testing

being a teacher, education reform, testing

It’s a Half Percent

Pernille Ripp
“I don’t mean to alarm you but it appears that your baby has an elevated risk for Downs…”  The road blurred in front of me as the words took shape in my stomach.  “The test results are back and normal is 1 in 10,000, yours is 1 in  214.”  It’s a half percent, it’s a half percent, it’s a half percent ran through my mind like a mantra, willing my hands to stay on the wheel and my eyes to stay on the road.  “The doctor will call you in a couple of days when he reviews the test results.”  And with that my whole world changed.

The first frantic phone call was to my mother, who was waiting for the airport bus.  I could barely choke out the words.  Shock, and then mommy reflexes sparing into action as she repeated “It’s a half percent.”  Finally got through to my husband, shock, then husband reflexes, and then anger.  Where was the doctor, why was a nurse calling with this information, what did this all mean? Soon the Internet became our go-to place; forums, statistics, percentages all became mandatory reading for this unwanted and unknown territory. Life dreams were revisited, rechecked, redreamed.

There were decisions to make, tests to have or not, what would a life look like with a child with Downs?  Could we provide the support and medical care that this child could possibly need?  Where had the bubble of the first 16 weeks of perfect pregnancy gone?  Why us?  Why me?  What had I done wrong?  2 days later, after many calls wondering whether the doctor had reviewed my tests, the call came.  He was angry.  Why had they pushed this extra test on me anyway?  The first test had been normal, so why do a second one?  I could barely hear his words, all I kept hearing was “It’s a half percent, it’s a half percent…”

So we went ahead and had the evasive sample test done because we knew that no matter what this child possibly had, we wanted to be prepared for it.  The worry consumed me for days as I begged my body to not lose this child, that all I wanted was answers, whatever they would be.  That this child would be loved, no matter the cost, so please, please just stay with me.

I was home alone, another phone call.  The results were in, “Your little girl is fine, no need to worry.”  My heart stopped beating for just a second.  “Did you say fine?  Did you say little girl?”  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Another visit with the doctor and again that same anger; why would they test you?  Why did they want one more?  I felt embarrassed to tell him that I had jumped at the chance when it had been presented to me, after all as a first time pregnant person, I thought the more tests, the better.  After all, don’t we want to rule everything out?  He looked at me and said, “If one test works, then there is no need for another one.”

How often could we apply those same words in education?  That one test should be more than enough, if we actually are able to trust the results and choose to use them correctly?  Instead we barrage and deluge our children with test upon test, just to check once more.  How many times have we falsely diagnosed problems that were merely there because the test created it?  How many times do we ask for just one more test to make sure there isn’t really a problem?  How many times will we continue down this path of only believing the tests, rather than everything else?

being a teacher, education reform, testing

If We Teach to the Test

Pernille Ripp

If standardized tests determine how we teach, then students would probably:

  • Never raise their hand; after all they will prove their knowledge on the test.
  • Never explore around the topic, twisting it, turning it on its head and perhaps coming up with new questions.
  • Never ask different questions than what the teacher expects.
  • Not participate in discussion after one answer has been given since usually only answer is enough on a test.
  • Always be very, very quiet because to take a test there must be silence.
  • Always be cordoned off by privacy folders fore they must not cheat off each other.
  • Always know exactly where they rank and whether school is for them or not.
  • Realize that thinking creatively will hardly ever pay off.
  • Always ask what their grade and rank is and then flaunt it whenever they can since this is what a test-obsessed society deems important.
  • Be very god at filling out little bubbles inside the lines, making their mark and heavy, as well as erasing mistakes completely.
  • Never attempt to place an answer outside of a designated area.  After all, thoughts only get so much room to be explored.
  • Not really need a teacher, perhaps a scantron would be just fine.
being a teacher, students, testing

I Wasn’t Born a Test Taker

Pernille Ripp

I wasn’t born a test taker; instead I himmed and hawed over every single possibility of multiple choice answer, overanalyzing the test makers intent, knowing that there often was more than one correct answer.  In Denmark, essays were the way we were judged, and yet, I knew that somehow I had to conform myself to whatever someone had decided was the proper way to analyze, summarize or infer.  Whatever the method, the result was always the same, never as good as I wanted even though I had done all of the supposed right things to score high.

Now with the release of the new test results once again labeling the US as “average” at best, I wonder, how this will affect my students; our future.  What new initiative will be developed in a hurry to push, push, push our students harder.  Perhaps Saturday’s will become school days after all so that we can study for the test.  This obsession with testing and labeling, always ranking, as if those tests had something to do with the future success of these children.  They don’t and I tell my students that.  Testing is just a snapshot of where you were at that moment in time, how well-rested you were, how focused, happy, engaged.  Not a true view of what you really know, what you are capable of.  Testing does not determine your future job, spouse, creativity or happiness.

I don’t want to teach to the test.  I don’t want to make students into test takers.  I want to help them become better, more creative, engaged, discover their talents, hone them, support them, inspire them.  I want them to discover many possible ways to answer questions, not just conform to the one chosen by someone else.  I want them to question.  I wasn’t born a test taker but I became one.  I hope to spare that fate for my students.