The Dreaded ‘A‘ Word
As a principal, I’m always fascinated by the contents of my inbox. During certain parts of the year, I get a sudden influx of emails from parents about the dreaded ‘A’ word. Assessments! They seem to elevate everyone’s blood pressure. Parents are more concerned, and learners are more anxious. Whether it’s a Matric English paper, or a grade 4 Math test, assessments seem to be bad news for just about everyone. So why is that, and what should be done about it?
Let’s start with the problem, broken down into parts. But before we get into it, I do want to say that I see great value in quality assessment done well in schooling. So as you read the next few paragraphs, hang in there - hope is coming! Now back to the problem.
The Pressure Problem
When you think about the sorts of pressures our teens face day to day, what comes to mind? The Pew Research Centre in the USA conducted a study in 2018 asking teens where they feel the most pressure. By far the top answer? Getting good grades in school. 61% of teens said that they felt “a lot” of pressure to excel academically. That was more than double the number that felt pressure to “fit in socially” at 28%. It was more than ten times as many that felt the pressure to “drink alcohol” at only 6% of teens.
Test stress is a reality for the majority of our teens. Sadly, an earlier study by Pew found that 64% of parents felt that they were not putting enough pressure on their children to do well in school. Hear that? Teens are feeling way more pressure to excel in school than to do drugs, and the majority of parents think that we should probably pressure our kids more academically.
The Problem with Averages
Right from my very first teaching post, one question has come up over and over in just about all of my parent teacher meetings: “What was the class average?”. It’s a natural thing for a parent to want to know. How does my child compare to the rest of the rabble? The problem with ‘the average’ is that no matter how smart everyone in a class is, exactly half of the class will be below the average. That’s how ‘average’ works.
Now, class averages can be very useful in some contexts, such as checking to see whether an assessment was at an appropriate difficulty level. But the average is not very helpful when it comes to considering an individual learner’s progress, and can be downright harmful in the wrong context. Just listen to the sentiments of a young high schooler who sent this message to his mom recently, which she shared on social media: “Hi mom. I did bad in my tests. The class avg was 55, I got 60 because I didn’t understand a question. Sorry for doing so bad. Guess I’ll have to work harder next term.” The crux of his disappointment was that he only just beat the class average. It had nothing to do with his own goals, or previous performance. It was simply about where he placed in class, and it wasn’t good enough. If that is everyone’s standard, then there will only ever be a handful of learners in each class that can consider themselves successful.
The Problem with Failure
Failure is not always a problem, but we treat it like it is. We all know that failure can be a wonderful catalyst for learning and growth, but sadly our traditional approach to assessment leaves no room for failure in the minds of our children. Just listen to the first hand experience of award winning adventurer Ben Fogle: “I failed my exams but exams also failed me. I find it astonishing that in 2023 we are still fixating on exams as the medium of defining people’s intellectual potential and capabilities. Fail enough and eventually you’ll concede to those failings and once you capitulate, they become inevitable. From there, it’s a slippery slope to self loathing that strips you of your confidence and self esteem.”
It was only after school that Ben discovered that getting something wrong in the real world is not the end, but the middle of a healthy process. Unfortunately, our current educational system often leaves little space for healthy risk, experimentation and failure. It’s no wonder that many of our young adults lack confidence, curiosity and the ability to accept feedback. We’ve taught them to be scared of failing.
The Problem with Hard Skills
This point probably needs its own essay. Most schools teach and assess primarily hard skills - the type of skills which equip someone to perform a specific task. Long division is a hard skill. So is coding, copywriting and reading sheet music. Part of the reason that we focus so heavily on hard skills is that our traditional education system is built on outdated industrial era models where hard skills were essential in the workforce. They are not anymore. Hello ChatGPT! Now computers and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are able to do many hard skills much more efficiently than us.
We’ve known for a long time that soft skills are key. These are personal attributes that allow someone to effectively work in the real world along with other people. They include communication, critical thinking, collaboration (and some others that don’t start with a ‘c’). But just how critical are these soft skills? According to a Harvard study: “85% of career success comes from having well-developed soft skills.” That’s staggering. Essentially, if schools continue to teach and assess mainly hard skills, we are teaching our children to be really bad AI, rather than really good humans.
The Problem with the Titanic
To wrap up on the negative front, I fully understand why we assess the way we do in traditional schooling - operating within a very antiquated system with significant economic, logistical and legislative constraints. It makes sense to run very standardised tests: everyone writing the same test, at the same time, in the same age group seems… manageable. And the educational ecosystem is huge, complex and interconnected. So even though we know that a lot of our assessment practices are either unhelpful or even harmful in some aspects, changing our practices is like turning the Titanic. The lookout post on the Titanic saw the iceberg ahead before it struck, it just takes a long time to turn such a big ship. The knock-on effects in education make it very difficult to affect significant change in assessment in an industry which has stagnated.
I did promise some hope. So let’s unpack ways that we can effectively move the needle on assessments in education. The sources are not all that surprising: it comes down to parents, schools and policies. You’ll notice that I don’t put any onus on the learners; asking them to take responsibility for unhealthy assessment practices is like asking a tree to stop blowing in the wind.
Educated Parents
As parents, we have a very significant role in shaping how our children view assessments. We need to start by asking ourselves how often we fall into bad thought habits regarding assessments, oftentimes simply because it is the system that we grew up in and are so familiar with. Our habits will influence how our children think about assessment.
The next time you are getting ready to ask about the class average, take a moment to first ask yourself why that really matters to you. Then ask yourself whether you might have a better question. Here are a few suggestions:
How has my child grown in the last few months?
What holds my child back most in terms of their academic growth?
What soft skills have you seen in my child that you would like to develop?
How well does my child take feedback?
How can I encourage my child to learn from their mistakes?
Daring Schools
Brave schools are doing some exciting things when it comes to assessment. With a little creativity and initiative, we are able to simultaneously prepare our learners for maximum success in their exit exams, as well as create an assessment environment which is healthy.
For example, at Koa we are passionate about empowering our learners as much as possible through Mastery Based Learning, where a learner progresses as they show mastery in a subject. We also believe that assessments should look very different for an 8 year old compared to an 18 year old, so our younger grades have most of their assessments built into the learning. Learners do bite sized assessments individually as they progress. We call it ‘assessment for learning, not assessment of learning’.
Formal assessments like tests and exams are a key part of learning. But they are certainly not the only part - nor in my opinion even the most important part. And somehow, the word ‘assessment’ has become synonymous with tests and exams. Schools need to rethink that. At Koa, we have seen amazing benefits from introducing other elements of assessment, such as collaborative feedback. Just today, I watched a group of 10 year old learners take turns giving each other constructive feedback on their work. The teacher’s comment to me: “They’ve learnt to give and receive feedback better than most adults would.” Talk about meaningful assessment!
Better Policies
Talk about turning the Titanic, educational legislation has in the past moved at glacial speeds. However, recent shifts in education have got policy makers working at what is relatively lightning speed. Part of this shake up includes the emergence of online schooling as a viable option for mainstream education in South Africa.
Another significant force for change is Artificial Intelligence. Tertiary institutions and examination boards in particular are having to radically rethink policies regarding assessments in order to maintain their authenticity and reliability. I see this as a catalyst for what could be a long awaited positive change in our assessment approach in schools.
Done well, assessment is a vital part of the learning process. Done poorly, it can be truly harmful for individuals and schools. We need to make sure that we maximise the opportunities that we have at the moment in education to do assessment well so that learners can grow and reach their greatest potential without unnecessary pressure and anxiety.
