Assessing Assessment

 The beginning of schooling or formal education is an important event, not only in a child’s life but also in the lives of the parents. Rigorous research and contemplation over multiple parameters for assessing various options precedes the decision making of narrowing down on a few ‘good’ pre - primary schools. The next stage consists of preparing the child (and also parents in some cases) to ‘crack the entrance test’. Those who are able to clear more than one test have an upper hand - the liberty of choosing a school of their preference.  

 

A sequence of similar events may generally also be associated with a lot of things in life -getting into schools, colleges, universities, jobs, starting a business, getting a loan, etc. Assessments are an integral part of our daily life – definitely more structured for students but equally constitutive of our professional and personal lives. But do we really understand the meaning and purpose of assessments?

 

Brown's definition of assessments, which apparently looks simple, has a significantly deep meaning,  really struck me. He defined assessment as, “any systematic basis for making inferences about characteristics of people, usually based on various sources of evidence; the global process of synthesizing information about individuals in order to understand and describe them better.”

 

So the way I understand it, from a teacher’s point of view, assessments are or at least should be, based on the premise of recognizing the assesse`s personality – strengths, virtues and merits; with the aim to hone the positives, overcome the shortfalls thus ultimately leading to a roadmap of progress.  Unfortunately assessments in our current educational system are synonymous with rote learning and competing with peers rather than ourselves.  

 

I remember the times when securing first division was reason enough for parent’s to feel proud and teachers were not under constant pressure of giving inflated marks to boost a child’s or their parent’s morale. Inconsistencies between marks scored by a child in school (especially board exams) and a college admission test or a competitive exam were certainly not a common occurrence. Point simply being, that our assessment techniques and to a certain extent even our teaching techniques in schools may need to be rethought.   

 

‘Santiniketan’ – Rabindranath Tagore’s experimental school and our age old Gurukuls are epitomes offering inspiration and lessons of joyful and creative learning – joining dots between children’s education and real lives. Gurudev Tagore once wrote a short story on the education system. ‘A little bird was fluttering about happily – until a king noticed it. The king ordered that the bird needed to be taught properly. What followed was a long painful procrustean sequence of events: A golden cage, textbooks and batons. The education industry thrived; the bird did not. Its throat was so completely choked with the leaves from the books that it could neither whistle nor whisper. Eventually the bird fluttered to the floor of the cage and died.’ The story sends chills down my spine for I am afraid for our children ending up like the bird.

 

Classes at Santiniketan were primarily held outdoors, under trees, in the open where children were not cramped inside small schoolrooms throughout the day – offering them a flavour of mother Earth and its beauties in well ventilated spaces. What our children have been experiencing for the last eighteen months – staying locked up within ‘safe walls for medical reasons’ and the toll it has taken on their eyes, weight, agility and overall physical as well as psychological health, is a painfully disturbing issue. I understand that the paucity of information about COVID 19 virus had left us with no other option but to immediately shut down schools during March – April 2020. But we haven’t made any significant progress since then. Many countries worked towards it and then opened schools with required safety measures. But in our case, even after the medical fraternity advising that children are less likely to be at risk, a handful of journalists and people with selfish political motives have been opposing and crying foul against reopening of schools in the name of safety. What is worrisome is our inability to see the psychological damages which will, without an iota of doubt lead to serious physical problems that this decision of keeping children away from schools is causing.

 

Although, allowing the reopening of schools in certain states may be seen as the beginning of the end of that problem, what must also be well thought of are our post pandemic classrooms. Gurudev Tagore believed that ‘the highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence.’ He believed in making learning fun, by providing an environment that was stimulating. And we today have no reason good enough to not follow his philosophies. In my opinion, the reopening of our schools will be inept, a mere formality unless we are willing to really open up our education system. 

 

The NEP 2020 emphasizes on giving students the freedom and flexibility to carry forward and integrate credits across various courses. An idea worth much appreciation. But before we implement that we shouldn’t forget that in these last eighteen months that our children have been away from classrooms, they have been promoted to next classes without proper exams and not much leaning. Without exams may be fine, but without learning is an issue sadly not much people are talking about. In my opinion, the one thing we should consider incorporating to tackle this gap of learning is a flexible assessment system which will reflect the true progress of a pupil.

 

Assessments are usually three types –

1. Assessment as learning

2. Assessment for learning

3. Assessment of learning

 

A mix of the above three exists in our system today. What needs to be rethought is the weightage given to each. Currently the most amount of importance is given to the third one i.e. assessing how much the child knows. Whereas in my opinion, what should really be assessed is a child’s progress i.e. the child’s performance in an exam be treated as learning – something to reflect on and monitor to keep a track of improvement.

 

Our current system is very rigid; we work on the assumption of ‘one size fits all’. Learning has turned into mere accumulation of information; a pre requisite to achieve pre decided goals. Even educators these days consider children empty vessels that ought to be filled with more information than what they can process. And grades have simply become a reflection of their capacity to memorize the information. In simple words, the significance of creativity and original ideas has been replaced with quantum of facts. The concept of every child being unique seems to have lost its existence. And that is the only explanation I can think of for us to believe that our current system is fair and justifiable.

Children are innocent and impressionable beings – each a special package with varied learning styles and different acumen and aptitudes. Yet our education system feels it appropriate to judge them on the same yardstick. Moreover we boast that our education system is actually helping and preparing students to face real life challenges. What I do not understand is, in which world is imperfection non - existent? We are all flawed; God has made us that way. Why then are we so obsessed with high scores in exams that we lead our children into believing that their shortcomings is a sign of failure, something to be ashamed of, something socially unacceptable. Why can we not let them make their own mistakes and concentrate on helping them overcome those instead of punishing them for it? Why can we not let them learn at their own pace and put an end to unhealthy peer pressure? Learning should not be a burden, it should be liberating. Being a good student should not be equated to scoring high grades; rather it should be based on a child’s ability and intend to thrive.

Assessments and the evolution of their formats seem to shed some light on how our convenience has become more important to us. For example, the MCQs - easy to administer, easy to attempt and easy to examine. But does this format not inadvertently make our children believe that there is only one correct answer for each question? Life doesn’t work that way. Our real life problems do not come with four options to choose from; neither do they have a single, fixed, sure shot correct answer. Thus, putting children in situations which will make them believe otherwise and condition their mind to function in that manner is, in my opinion, highly counter - productive.

Therefore for our assessments to really become the bridge between teaching and learning, they should be aligned with real life goals, measure what really matters and be fair. Why then do we not consider basing our verdicts about a child’s progress on their rough work and practice notebooks? And why should we not consider changing the nomenclature of ‘fail’ or ‘repeat’ to something more positive like ‘revamping’ or ‘amelioration’?

To conclude I would like to quote from an article ‘Mistake Mystique’ by R Buckminster Fuller, I recently read. There the author talks about how in our current system, teachers, professors, etc look for errors in a student’s exam answer sheets and allot marks in the ratio of percentage of mistakes to the percentage of correctly remembered concepts. But further, he suggests an alteration of this practice and instead make students periodically report a written account of their mistakes not only regarding the course subject but also their self - discipline during the term, while also recording what they have learned from the recognition of their mistakes. This will encourage them to find their own mistakes and report the depth of their learning – showcasing a true state of their progress. This way mistakes will become moral boosters and stepping stones for learning, rather than a matter of shame.