The discussion on what it means to truly assess a kid has taken me to a different place, in terms of my own experience as a teacher. I don’t even know what the term assessment means anymore. I do know that the term for me is moving fast to the rubric/portfolio/descriptive model.
I’m even really having some trouble with the ACTFL Performance indicators. Why would I want to tell a child of color whose dad is in prison and who isn’t getting enough food to eat each day where he ranks on the Proficiency Scale?
And why even would I want to inflate the ego of a white superachiever that yes with stories in two years she got to IL so now we can say that the more poverty ridden kids get lower scores than those of privilege? Is that how America works?
Ooops, I said something like that on FB a few weeks ago and got blasted so let me rephrase: Why would I want to tell one kid who is just trying to get through their day and therefore in my judging eyes is not “motivated” that they don’t rank as high as some other students in the room?
We need to redo the way we assess y’all. It’s not funny anymore. It’s got to be more human, less robotic, more individualized, less comparing, less judging, and it needs to give more hope.