Our discussion about assessment has me thinking about the unnecessary brutality, directed at both teachers and students, of testing. It is as if there is some negative organizing principle that wants us to test and will get upset if we don’t, and we buy into it. It’s the old Wizard of Oz trick.
As a result of recent discussion here, and after not really thinking too deeply about how I assess for 38 years, including 24 of them as an AP language and literature teacher, I am now beginning to see testing that attempts to quantify (thus divide, fracture, judge and compare) as bad. We have all been and continue to be fooled for so long now!
In the place of looking for super vague performance indicators and overly picky traditional testing formats, I see compassionate and aware assessment that resembles our story based instruction happening in harmony in inspired, uplifting CI classes in which joy is a factor, and the communication real. I see our discussion on Authentic Assessment going in that direction.
“What is the quality of our shared negotiation of meaning in class?” is a question I might ask when I assess my students in the future. Another question to describe this new model of assessment might be, “Are you understanding because you really want to know?” or “You’re not even aware that this discussion is in French, are you?” or “What are you doing to contribute to the story?”