“Thus, unlike rebellions, which are here today and gone tomorrow, revolutions require a patient and protracted process that transforms and empowers us as individuals…
as we struggle to change the world around us. Going beyond rejections to projections, revolutions advance our continuing evolution as human beings because we are practicing new, more socially responsible and loving relationships to one another and to the earth.” Grace Lee Boggs
We need an early care and education {r}evolution because we can no longer allow flawed and failing educational policies to harm children.
If we want to see change in our lives, we have to change things ourselves.”
There are many other educational policies that are part of the ECE {r}evolution…but let’s chat, oh so briefly, about what we know about testing, across purposes, ages, and skills:
- How a child performs on a test doesn’t predict later success (Zhao, 2020)….even if you argue you can predict later success on another thing being measured (e.g., trying to predict 3rd grade reading scores based upon letter identification when you are four years old)…it’s not the kind of success that matters in living a life with meaning and purpose.
- Test scores do not reflect teacher quality or teacher ability. Testing “trivializes the complexity of teaching” (Zhao, 2020) and does little to “explain the complexities and the realities of discrimination and of power or lack there of, and how they intersect with identities” (Love, 2019).
- Testing does harm. Testing includes collateral damage that can’t be overlooked as a benign side-effect. Testing causes stress, kills creativity, and contributes to systematic oppression (Love, 2019; Zhao, 2020).
When we aim to test things many care about from social-emotional skills, to mindset, to creativity…when we turn these things into standards that must be measured…we run the risk of working harder to hold teachers accountable, than honoring the relationship they are in with another human (Zhao, 2020).
And as Dr. Bettina Love shares, “pedagogy, regardless of its name, is useless without teachers dedicated to challenging systematic oppression with instructional social justice.”
Redirecting power and resources is a primary focus of abolitionist teaching and the goal of educators and individuals concerned about educational justice, rather than measuring grit or apprising dark children’s characters in toxic environments of while they’re living the with th stress of being young and dark. Our focus must shift instead of protecting our students’ potential. Love, 2019
I’m a novice when it comes to so many things. Yet there are times when my heart is 100% clear and certain about a saying, situation, or story.
Testing is one of those examples. One where I know I have much to learn, yet my heart sees what is not yet clear in my mind.
Sources
Grace Lee Boggs: Introduction to Revolution and Evolution in the Twentieth Century [link]
We Want To Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and The Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Bettina L. Love [website]
Building a No Test Future w/Dr. Yong Zhao [podcast]