The Mr. Clarke Minute

Have you ever felt the desperation of needing a toothpick immediately after a meal but there aren’t any nearby? You just feel a sinking dread that this is now your life, and you will be forced to live with this new reality of aggressively moving your tongue along your molar in pursuit of the sweet moment of bliss when the belligerent object digresses out of the odd curvature of your tooth. Then, once you finally manage to get it out, with a sore tongue and an odd awareness of this new area in your mouth, your life begins once again with the joy of living with an unexpected peace you never anticipated.

What does this have to do with standardized testing, you ask? Maybe our perception of standardization as the annoyance stuck in our teeth and feels impossible to deal with is not actually the foreign enemy we have engineered a distaste for and should feel forced to live with.

Now, standardized testing is not without its criticism as in order for it to be effective, it must be rigorous, valid, and requires substantial investment to produce an authentic display of learning. As it is within my context, students are confined to only two assessment modalities; written and multiple choice. This certainly discourages creativity, and, in some ways, original thought.

On the other hand, does a student need to demonstrate these skillsets to help produce even higher quality creative pieces or original thinking once they have mastered the fundamentals that standardized testing intends to measure? Do we send them into the societal basketball game without first making sure they know how to dribble?

There may be some who write on exam day in a state of anxiety, have turmoil within their household, have gone through the semester with varying levels of access to education, or through struggling with any form of cognitive impairment. It is not that a student should be able to present all of their skills on one day and then be defined by it, but that students learn the fundamental skills for writing and critical thinking in the process of preparing for these exams.

What seems to be the case, from my perspective, whether it be through my own standardized indoctrination or through learning about how to do standardized testing well, is reconsidering that standardized testing the extent to which standardized testing attempts to ensure every child is being held to the same expectations.

If anything, there appears to be levels to standardized testing, and the primary goal, when executed appropriately, is to provide an equitable education to students throughout the province or state in which the student resides. If the goal of an education system is to produce a certain expectation of literacy, numeracy, and citizenship, is holding every student in the same educational context to the same standard not an equitable solution?

An educational narrative I have struggled with is when you employ this form of testing, it then does not provide an equitable measure for all students. It seems to be beneficial when viewed through the lens where if it shows consistent underperformance in certain areas, it can provide valuable information for guiding educational investment in the future. Perhaps then, standardized testing may not simply be only a tool to adopt students into the industrial workforce, and, if executed appropriately, has the potential to provide equitable access to learning in any given educational context.

If you are interested in learning more about the process of creating standardized tests, listen in to my episode with Tim Coates, a former Diploma Exam Manager in Alberta for more than twenty years.

This Week on the Podcast

Staci Bailey - Staci is a Secondary Humanities & CTS teacher and has been in the profession for just over a decade. On part one of our conversation, my cousin and I discuss ‘nugs, not drugs,’ her ‘abstinence is awesome’ clothing, our expectations of teaching versus its reality, figuring out what kind of teacher we wanted to be, her experience as an EA, definitely never losing student work, Tetley tea, Diet Pepsi, and, much more.

Shannon Dube - Shannon is currently the President for ATA Local 48 as well as the Numeracy Coordinator for the Fort McMurray Public School Division. On part one of our conversation, Shannon and I discuss the weirdness of incentivizing teachers out of the classroom, planning Professional Development for more than eight hundred teachers and the challenges that come with trying to please everyone, if the post-covid learning loss even exists, how the government is tying funding to learning loss, how school cultures develop in isolation, and, much more.

Upcoming Guests

Jay Yoder - Jay is a Teacher, Comedian, and Co-Host of the Teachers Off Duty Podcast. He is also the host of his own podcast ‘Seriously, Dad’ and is based in Philadelphia. On this episode, Jay and I discuss his transition into comedy, being terrified when he started teaching and the pit stains that came with it, the importance of having other passions, being raised by lesbian mothers and feeling like he needed to hide it, his experience raising his autistic daughter, weird first-year teacher fears, and, much more.

Listen to the show here —> linktr.ee/mrclarkeafterdark