O.W.L.E's and Objective Testing



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"Ordinary. Wizarding. Level. Examinations. More commonly known as O.W.L.'s. Study hard and you will be rewarded. Fail to do so and the consequences may be… severe." -Dolores Umbridge




Test day- it's what a student thinks (s)he is in school for. I can just picture it now:

Teacher: "Students, why are we learning this?"

Students (in unison minus maybe 3 students): "To do well on the test."

What?!

Although this scene may seem a bit exaggerated, I’m here to vouch that it in fact is not. Monday morning I headed into room 218. After a morning journal to get their little pencils (and more importantly-brains) moving, it was time to introduce the week’s vocabulary words, and the teacher asked why it was important to learn and understand the meaning of these words. All the students thought they had the right answer so hands simultaneously and excitedly rose. However the answer (at least to me) seemed far from correct. Answers varied in word selection but could be summarized to the student response from the example scenario above (“To do well on the test”). So it was very easy to picture that scenario because, well, it happened. While sitting in room 218, my heart kind of broke. I tried to keep my mouth from dropping and keep all the hundred little “why’s” fluttering around my brain from escaping out of my mouth. Have students become that conditioned that everything they learn is for a test? Is this the perfect example of Pavlov’s classic conditioning, and students are just scared of Dolores Umbridge’s “severe” consequences? Whatever happened to knowledge for knowledge’s sake? And my questions would ramble on but I’ll exert some self control.

Okay, I know students must be assessed. I know test are necessary, and not the root of all evil BUT I feel they have been weighted too highly. So, objective tests may be a small branch from the root of all evil. It probably originated from the tree of good and knowledge but after some cross pollination by some political botanists it now grows from one of those roots of evil. (Dramatic? A bit) As Gallagher noted how standardized tests are killing readers, I feel standardized tests (and other sorts of objective testing) are killing students’ desire to learn, or at least warping their desires. Objective testing (when it comes to English), in my own opinion, disadvantages students’ abilities to think critically and creatively. I have always loved literature because there is not one right interpretation, there is not only one right answer. Objective tests take that away. There is only one right answer, and if a student gets it wrong it is assumed that they don’t know or understand.

That then leads to me to the authentic assessment. Where it allows students to run off with creativity but also requires them to think critically. Also it’s not a test, so students can’t say they are learning something “for the test” because, guess what children, there is no test (holla at cho boy). Papers and/or projects are sometimes daunting, but isn’t test day just as scary. I’m sure 5^th (it’s 5^th year right?) Hogwarts students’ stomachs turn endlessly on O.W.L.E day (Slightly Off Topic note: Another one of my complaints about objective testing conditioning. Students are scared of tests? Should they not be confident in what they have learned and now know?) I think authentic assessment, although far from easy to do, relieves some of the nerves of test day. They get to work through their nerves and dig deeper into their thoughts and ideas. I just never want my students to be scared of a Professor Umbridge and the consequences of not doing well on an objective test. I love creative minds- and want my students to use theirs, and feel they can do that best through authentic assessment. And lastly, I never ever ever ever ever (and it’d go on if I had all night) want my students to think they are learning something simply to get the correct answers on a test (I don’t think my heart could handle that much breaking). Yuck.

With a Cultural Approach (don't worry this isn't about Intro to Lit Studies II)

Although the first chapter of Gallagher's book is interesting, I found the second chapter much more useful and applicable. I don't think any of us favor standardized tests and are just itching to start next semester to teach towards the test, so I am going to skip over that chapter in this blog. 

Chapter 2 begins with Marissa and Justine not knowing who Al (it's Qaeda, Al Qaeda). Gallagher's comment made me think of the conceptual unit I created last week. For those who don't know, I connected Swifts "A Modest Proposal" to the 2012 Presidential Election. My text set consisted of some, as Gallagher called, authentic reading. I also had students choosing and reading news articles each week. So after finishing chapter two I was left thinking about Gallagher's ideas in relation to my conceptual unit (selfish, I know). 

First I know I want my students to know what's happening around them and therefore, always want to implement culturally current event readings to my classrooms. (I had a teacher that would start every single class with the question, "Does anyone have any interesting current events to share?" He would spend as much time as it took for all the students to share what they wanted to share before he started his actual lesson plan. Although this seems like it could take up valuable class time, it also encourages students keep up with what's going on in the world.) I tried to demonstrate this want through my conceptual unit, however after reading Gallagher's chapter I questioned whether or not my goals would work (I know his chapter was not focused solely on providing students with culturally current texts, but that's what stood out most to me). It was easy to create this unit with all texts consisting of newspaper and magazine articles, videos, twitter, blogs, etc because it wasn't real. I did not have to supply the articles or videos. I did have to make sure I had the texts available for my students. I think this is where I will struggle most; I will have tons of ideas but they won't be any good unless I put them into practice but that requires me standing up to the head of my department, the principal, or (gasp) the superintendent. It'll be tempting to take the easier route and work what I have to avoid possible confrontation with any of the previously mentioned positions, but then am I hurting my students? I'd say yes. Primarily because there are those (cough Bauerlein cough) arguing that the younger generation is the dumbest generation. When as student doesn't know about al Qaeda, it'd be easy to argue that they Marissa and Justine are definitely members of the dumbest generation club, but are they dumb or ignorant? I'd go with ignorant, and so I think it's our job as future teachers to make our students less ignorant, and make them aware of what's going on around them. So although I'd be a bit intimidated to approach those above me about texts, I think it's something worth getting over. Especially because in my unit I didn't consider allowing students to read these texts at home, and after reading this chapter I feel as though it'd be so much more beneficial if they did. This will just be another reason why I'll have to swallow my nerves and kind of fight for my students needs. 

To wrap all my rambling thoughts up, I'll finish by stating that I found Gallagher's second chapter extremely useful, especially the week following creating my conceptual unit (Shannon, did you plan this?). It provided me with a lot to think about and consider when I enter the class room (which will be here way sooner than I think ahhhh).  


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