Testing for Intelligence?

                                                     

                                                         Testing for Intelligence?

Here in the state of Washington, we used to have the WASL, now they have taken this testing and named it MSP which is given to middle school's and the HSPE which is for the high school's, not to mention other testing the high schools have to give to students for them to pass in order to graduate.  I still remember comments from my sons' teachers when the WASL was around, how stressful it was at times for the children as well as for the teachers. First, the child is getting taught to the test. Second the teacher is being pushed to teach the material in a certain way cutting off her or his possibilities for incorporating their teaching styles nevertheless learning about their students ways of learning. The main idea as we know is that students get pushed so hard to pass the test because not only benefits the teachers scores but the school gets money from the government.  I am not to keen about testing children for these purposes, what happens with the children that have fallen behind through the years?, what happens to those that need special help of maybe learn things in a different way?, what about assessing children and use that information to learn about each one of them, learn other ways to teach them and be successful? On the other hand, I think that teachers should also be assessed, do they have the passion and dedication to their students or is it just a job for them? I have known too many teachers between my children and I can tell you which ones are the ones who are so dedicated to their children and love their job with the ones that do not have that drive to make their learning experience interesting, very monotone. As Berger mentions in the textbook with regards of intelligence that children can inherit many different abilities some might be high and some low (2012). So why not harvest their minds by learning their styles of learning, for teacher to observe and re-plan their ways of teaching in order to serve to their full potential and abilities.

Testing children in other parts of the world 

I found this article that caught my attention because the study was made with Peruvian children. Children that live in poverty and those who do not, children who live in the city but have migrated from the highlands and maybe go or not go to school. Their finding stated that children who live in poverty for the most part do not attend school rather they go to work so they can help their families(Stevenson, 1989). There was this comparison they did which reminded me a lot when I was going to school over there and that is the cost of school supplies. Many of the schools are not well equipped specially public schools where are the private ones are. Many families can not afford to pay monthly fees for their children to attend school. I remember my mom having to work two jobs in order for me to attend a private school. Education is different in that aspect, in public school there is a problem often with teachers going on strike because they don't get paid therefore children fall behind, etc. On the other hand there are those schools that do very well. Teachers, parents and students must come together and work building a partnership which can benefit not only the children but their future educational system as well.

References

Berger, K. S. (2012). The developing person through childhood (6th ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.

Stevenson, H., W. (1989). Schooling and achievement: A study of Peruvian children. Retrived from deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/.../1/0000686.pdf

Consequences of stress in child's development

For this assigment, will talk about racism. Growing up, I went to a girl only catholic nun school. There was about 20 of us from the first graduating class since it was a very brand new school. There was a problem, perhaps one that is was not put to much attention when I attended. The class started to get divided into the ones that were popular and the ones that were not. The popular girls were the ones who had colored eyes, blond, light skin, better homes, lived in good neighborhoods, high status, etc. The rest of us came from middle to low income families, our parents worked very hard to get us a better education in a good school since they had to pay for it. There was a particular nun whom she would always listen and do what the popular girls said, hanged out with them and so on. There was an occasion where there was going to be a play put together for our families for mother's day. This nun had put this girl in charge to get the girls who had good voice in to the play and maybe some others one t do something else, so of course as you can imagine we all wanted to be part of it, me and several girls practiced so hard and tried to do the best so we can get picked. Well, she ends up picking of course her friends first, then she picks only one more and tells us that we are not good enough and we sang horrible. We became very distant and started to have anger towards them, it was devastating for us at that time. We brought it up to the nun and nothing was done. Many things like this happen for many more months, so we started believing that because of our status and the way we looked, we were just not good. Then, a teacher came to work there, I can say she was what we needed, she treated all of us as the same no matter where you came from and what you looked like. This teacher was not liked very much by the popular girls but for us she was our role model. Neath less say, looking back to those teen years, it was tough to deal with that. You start doubting yourself, trying to look different just for the fact that you want to fit in. Many of us deal with racism one way of another no matter who you are, is very important to educate and guide our new generations with eyes of equality and compassion.

Poverty affecting children in Peru is raising. There is 28 million people living in Peru, were 38 % is made up of children between the ages of 0 to 17 and 68% of them live in poverty (UNICEF, 2007). Poverty affects children's nutrition due to lack of food and nutrients their body needs to grow and develop normally as they grow it also affects their schooling performance, if they are lucky enough to attend a public school safe and good enough for them to learn. Sometimes poverty becomes part of their life cycle as family generations have long live this way. Every region in Peru is different but the most troubled are in the highlands area of Peru.

Reference

UNICEF (2007) Situation of children in Peru. Retrieved from

www.unicef.org/peru/spanish/Folleto_ing_correc_1.pdf