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Problem:?Standardized testing has become the main measurement of a child’s intelligence. However,?a single test is an unreliable and an unfair measurement of a child’s true potential and is not suitable for all students. This problem speaks out to concerned and/or clueless parents and even struggling students.Genre:?I wrote my problem essay in the form of a persuasive?blog post because I, myself, use inspirational blogs to stay up to date with events, underground problems, and inspirational stories. I even assimilate the teachings from the blogs posts into my daily life. Similarly, concerned parents are likely to read blogs as a tool for parenting and this blog would inform and inspire them to make change.right5524500Standardized Testing?has become a daunting and scary concept to students. As these tests have immense impact on the future of its students, its effect on students have undoubtedly created a weak system to measure intelligence and must be changed. ?Standardized testing?is definitely a highly debated topic in education for the primary reason of its effect it has on our child students. ?These standardized tests are designed to measure a student’s overall writing ability, math skills, vocabulary, and critical thinking. The concept behind these tests was to have a systematic way to compare the “intelligence” of one student to another student. However, what the test writers do not factor in is the most important part: the student.As students, we are required to take a standardized test once a year (if not more). How can we subject the judgment of our performance as students on a single test alone is a valid measure of what we have learned? The fact that we must prove all our intelligence through just pen and paper is highly questionable, especially if we will be judged through these standardized tests throughout our whole educational career.A child’s first experience with standardized testing is introduced in elementary school as STAR at the age of 5 (kindergarten students). This marks the beginning to a never ending cycle to “learning to the test”. ?From these tests, students are put in a group based on how high or low they tested. This pressure and labeling, with no surprise has a?negative, discouraging?effect on its students (not to mention at such a young age). The groups that the children are put in constrain the child as a student, not letting them expand beyond where they were categorized. ?Furthermore, the fact that students feel physically ill and have mental breakdowns at the very idea of school because of the early categroization, begs the question:?has school become more about getting good grades than learning?Up until college, we are stigmatized by SAT and ACT scores that will forever determine our future. Standardize tests haunt student all through their educational career. The SAT is by far the biggest test that will determine a student’s “intelligence”. This standardized test is taken in the time span of several hours, constrained with a minimal break period and has a student pour out all his/her knowledge in a single test. Personally, my experience with taking SAT and ACT was not a memorable one. The sleepless nights spent awake as the pressure of scoring the perfect score ate me up inside out. The physical, mental and even emotional drain (before and) after taking these tests was nothing I would ever want any other child have to go through. Because of his/her mental exhaustion from testing, the student cannot perform to his/her true potential.left952500We teach our children to be an individual, to be themselves and to always strive for excellence and originality. However, how are kids expected to be one in a million in this individualistic culture when the kids next to them are being graded by the same exact test? The problem and change we are looking for ?is not the student, but in the?school system. To create a better image, I have come across a picture on a blog, which was a revelation for me. The comic (pictured above) is less comical and more saddening to realize how unfair the school system works. In the comic, the man speaking (representing the school system) is not worried about each animal’s (individual student’s) capabilities and knowledge, but more concerned with the achievement of a single task. Not all students are created to strive equally, let alone on the same area/topic. In fact, each student has his or her own talents and to subject them to one test with limited subjects is unfair. Though there are some students who perform very well on tests, there are some (if not more) students who are?terrible test takers. As we look back onto the example of the SAT which scores according to English and Writing and Mathematics. These limited subjects are not enough to base a student’s knowledge, let alone on a 2400 scale. The school system has not created a justified means of measuring student’s knowledge, but created a great system to make some incredibly intellectual?young?human beings to believe they are not achieving success.Looking back onto my high school career, I remember the competitiveness between me and my fellow classmates. The pressure to score higher than my classmates in order to get into my dream college with a high SAT score almost took over my whole high school experience. It is important to also remember that as tests become more and more a key factor in determining major events (such as earning a high school diploma and getting into a good college), a fairly intelligent and head strong student can be denied these celebrations, all based on a single test performance.Learning is more than taking a test. Students should be graded in a manner that truly justifies their mastering of a concept rather than memorizing blanks and filling in bubbles. Though standardized tests may provide a good estimation; all students are able to show their intelligence in different ways. Standardized tests have constrained students by putting them into categorizes based on the score of their intelligence and cannot escape, the mental, physical, and emotional pain from harder and more important tests (such as the SAT), and the evident variety in students and not in tests. Because test scores and grades have ultimately come to define who we are as students (and often times as individuals), we must make a change now so that future generations of students don’t have to experience the mental, physical, and emotional pain I and many other students underwent.So, what now??The problem of standardized testing as an unreliable measurement of a student’s intelligence is clearly evident.?Standardized testing has been around for years, and we cannot ask the school system to make standardized testing obsolete in all. However, we can make progressive RM: We must?inform?all peoples of this unreliable way to measure a student’s potential through these tests. Whether you share this blog post or write your own experience with standardized testing, be sure to share this discerning problem with fellow parents, teachers, and even the student who are a part of this testing.MAKE IT KNOWN and BE ACTIVE: Now that you have the information and reasoning behind the changing standardized testing. We must make a difference and tell the community and members of our children’s school district’s Board of Education. Write letters to the members of the Board of Education. Attend Parent-Teacher-Student Association (PTSA) meetings and voice your opinion. If we, as students and parents, get together, our individual voices will roar.LET THE TEST FIT: There are millions of kinds of children, meaning there a million different kinds of students and so we must create a test accordingly. To have a test fit its students will allow a reliable measurement of a student’s potential. With that, we will not take away the whole pen and paper testing, but rather?alter testing to fit the needs and skills?to better enhance a student’s strengths while also noting what they struggle on. We can opt for testing that is computer generated so that a student can answer a question and the next question will be changed based on his or her answer.HANDS-ON TESTING: Schools should also introduce “hands-on testing”, which would be conducting an experiment, analyzing, and concluding the results. This better suits the needs of students who aren’t the best test takers, but really bright students who can show their work through action and spoken words versus writing and memorizing. Tests that are more geared towards a student’s strengths and capabilities are a better measurement of a student’s intelligence. Testing is not for everyone because different people are better at different things. Although it is important to be a well-rounded person, to waste time on pressuring a student to be judged solely on a single score is unfair.We all want the bet for our kids as parents, and so why have them suffer through a weak system that will structure their educational career and beyond. With that, the change for standardized tests will be hard, but it is not impossible. If we focus on the fact that if we can change this unreliable and unfair system now, we can create a more confident next generation that can learn more efficiently through these new ways of testing. Testing will no longer be a frightening word to our child students, but an exciting time to learn from their mistakes and left170497500express their capabilities.This image, “Exam”, belongs to . ?This image, “Our Education System”, belongs to ................
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