To test or not to test that is the question. Society says testing is important, but personally I think we would focus on the whole child and meeting the needs of children we would need to test far less. Standardized tests focuses just one aspect of the child it does not test all aspects of the child. All children have different strengths and a standardized test is not going to tell the entire story about a child. My daughter Lauren is not a good standardized test taker, but she is an amazing creative writer. Unfortunately, there is not a standardized test available that would have ever discovered that quality.
The country I chose to write about is Venezuela and their school system basically two tracks they have a college bound or vocation bound education track and it begins in middle school. My husband reported that he remembers going into fifth grade and making the decision that he was going the college bound track so from fifth grade on he took primarily math and science coursework with a limited number of humanities. That was so surprising to me that as young as fifth grade you are making decisions about your future. I would guess that probably is truly based on the your parents goals for your future instead of the child.
I think that instead of getting children ready for tests it is more important for schools to get ready for children. I also think that schools need to be focusing on meeting the individual needs of the child no matter the age. If teachers focused on meeting the individual needs of children our children would be accomplishing amazing things.
