It looks much like real life. When an adult watches a play, goes on vacation, reads a book, or watches an interesting program on PBS, there's no test at the end. When faced with information that fails to engage us we can either liven up the experience or stop. If our vacation at the beach is a bit dull, we can look into renting jet-skis. If a book is only interesting in parts, we are free to skip around. We can walk out on plays or change the channel or turn off the radio or TV. Few of us even have what you could call "tests" at work. In many professions, evaluations are performed either by periodic observations (as is the case when I teach) or measureable trends (such as sales numbers generated over a period of time). In most cases, employee evaluations include the employee's assessment of himself. Imagine if a student's report card had as much--or more--space on it for his comments as it does for his teacher's.
Even alternative schools that do not test or grade insist on outcomes. In Instead of Education, John Holt gives an example of a school that planned many trips, to which one father intially objected. These trips resulted in a giant relief map, reports, and interpretive dances, all of which the school's head praises. Holt responds to the praise:
The "outcome." Why does there always have to be an "outcome?" When I go to see something that interests me, I don't have to do a dance afterwards or make a six-foot papier mâché map and hoist it to the ceiling. I can decide for myself what sort of outcome, if any, I want to have for my experience. More important, I can wait until the outcome reveals itself to me. This takes time, sometimes years, and it never happens if "creative teachers" are busily pushing and prodding and motivating to make it happen. I have taught in schools like this, and I know how these outcomes are arrived at, how teachers, with skeptical fathers to placate, "intuitively bring out what the children want to say." The head of the school says he "never ceased to marvel" at the children's ability to put this or that into a dance. Just as surely the children never ceased to notice him marveling. It doesn't take long at schools like this for children to find out what teachers marvel at and like to see children doing. Or to learn that doing these things brings plenty of approval, smiles, praise, rewards, and good reports, and that not doing them, or even seeming to not to like doing them, means being pushed out of the charmed circle into outer darkness.
By trying to measure the outcome, we take away children's power to look at their own progress and decide for themselves if it is good enough. Here are select bits from my kindergarten report card:
Included 30 skills related to drawing, writing, pre-reading, counting, and speaking.
November: Caren has done a beautiful job this quarter. She seems to be working faster.
March: Caren does have to learn to work faster. She does a nice job, but just has to move faster.
June: Caren has done so well this year. I have enjoyed her and will miss her.
Looking at these categories, it's easy to imagine many perfectly good five-year-olds coming up as inadequate in some area. What if, in the half-day of high stimulation at school, a child never wanted to settle down and "demonstrate small muscle skills" and "relax quietly," or an only child never cared to "work alone," or a shy child was never comfortable "in large groups?" Would a child who liked to "work alone" when a group activity was underway and "played well with others" during what was meant to be a solo activity fail in those categories as well or just fail "cooperates in class routines and follows rules?"
The comments I didn't truncate at all. These 6 sentences are it. Why did I have to work faster? Which activities were "work" and which were "play?" Did I play fast enough at least? Since no reference was made to my speed in the final comment, I asssume I hadn't succeeded in that respect. I'm not sure what is meant by my having "done well" if the one area in which I needed to improve I did not. I'm pretty sure Mrs. B enjoyed and missed all of us, or was tactful enough to say so if nothing more meaningful could be written.
Fortunately I was largely oblivious to this, but I do remember a test that year in November where I was asked a series of questions, like my phone number and address, and for each correct response received a Thanksgiving-themed sticker on a "pilgrim's belt." I missed one because I asked for clarification on the question. I hated that blank space on my belt.
But this was only the way the school evaluated me. There were many ways in which I was self-evaluative at the very same time. First, one missing sticker on an entire belt would be success to many people. I'm sure my parents didn't mind the blank at all. But I wasn't satisfied. Similarly, I wasn't satisfied with my imperfect pronunciation (my Rs came out as Ws) and kept trying to correct it. A year later, I gladly accepted speech therapy. This is a good example of self-motivation to use conventional learning tools and methods. Second, I see no mention of two of my accomplishments that I still remember proudly from that year--a picture that came out exceptionally well, and grasping a particular math concept for the first time. Third, I didn't see my speed as a problem that year. Compared to the hassle my previous teacher gave me, I didn't think Mrs. B minded my pace at all. Left on my own, I would have made no effort to work faster. But I wasn't left on my own. I was given F in "Effort" the following year and generally hounded for years to work faster, harder, more diligently. I never succeeded in making the progress my teachers were looking for until I was diagnosed with ADD as a preteen. I knew better than anyone else in what areas I could improve, in what skills I cared to improve, and in what areas to cut myself some slack--and I was the first to notice my own accomplishments and growth. This is what we mean when we say that the fruit of self-evaluation is self-knowledge.
Many people are willing to accept that small children do not need constant testing to learn, and even that the role of testing in the lower grades is at least as much to evaluate the school as the child. But the role of testing in high school is different. For the college-bound student, a transcript and SAT scores are widely considered to be necessary. They aren't. Many homeschoolers, as well as students in alternative schools, are accepted to college based on portfolios of their own construction in lieu of a transcript. The Open School staff will assist students in keeping portfolios based on what they, the students, feel is their strongest work. SATs are also not absolutely necessary. Grace Llewellyn writes in The Teenage Liberation Handbook:
Kirsten Shepler, a student in Goddard College's off-campus program, writes in GWS #106, "Because I am a compulsory-school refuser, I chose not to take the SAT. Along with my application, I submitted a letter stating my reason for not sending the scores."
However, it is entirely up to the student whether or not testing is a tool he or she wishes to use. In the lower grades, children might use "tests" as a means of trying to stump each other, or challenge themselves. Older students would be able to take SAT, ACT and other standardized tests voluntarily if it is helpful to them in achieving their own goals. They would also have opportunities to set up SAT/ACT test prep classes or AP classes taught by staff or contracted instructors, or simply organize study groups among themselves. It will not be the role of the staff to encourage students to take or not take any test based on the future we (the staff) might anticipate for the student. It is the student's role to decide what tests serve his or her needs and the staff's role to provide the help the student wants.