Testing Unschoolers?

If You Cannot Avoid Standardized Tests...

...then just invalidate the results.

On the topic of testing: I have a very serious suggestion which will seem like a joke, but I'm absolutely soberly recommending this:

Cheat.

Don't cheat to get a better score or a worse score. Just invalidate the test either by taking too long, or making a pattern with all the answer marks in odd-numbered sections, or using dice to decide anything for which the answer isn't absolutely obvious to the child.

If the parent and child both know in advance that the scores could not POSSIBLY actually begin to attempt to reflect the child's "actual" knowledge or intelligence or aptitude or value, then that number will lose its juju and its ability to harm the child-parent relationship.

Of all the things I believe strongly, one which has changed my life as profoundly as any one other belief is my personal knowledge that test scores can and do (can't fail to) affect the treatment a child receives at his parents' hands. High scores, low scores, average scores—no matter. Parents cease to treat the child as his original, known self and color him soul deep with that number.

My life would have been different. My husband's life would have been different, without those 5th and 8th grade ITBS scores. I venture to say without even knowing who is reading this that your life would have been different, and specifically I believe your life would have been better, had not you been branded with a number on your "permanent record" (there's a big mean scary joke, the "permanence" and important parts) as a young innocent ten or thirteen year old full of potential, at some unknown point on a learning curve which might soon be at its settled-out point, or might just be beginning.

Quote from an article I wrote in 2003:

Each tree grows from a single seed, and when a tree is growing in your yard what is the best thing you can do for it? You can nurture it and protect it, but measuring it doesn't make it grow faster. Pulling it up to see how the roots are doing has never helped a tree a bit. What helps is keeping animals from eating it or scratching its bark, making sure it has water, good soil, shade when it needs it and sun when it needs it, and letting its own growth unfold peacefully. It takes years, and you can't rush it.

So it is with children. They need to be protected from physical and emotional harm. They need to have positive regard, food, shade and sun, things to see, hear, smell, taste and touch. They need someone to answer their questions and show them the world, which is as new to them as it was to us. Their growth can't be rushed, but it can be enriched.

Other ideas:

I am interested in knowing how "unschoolers" handle the requirements of their state in regards to end of the year testing or evaluations. Have many people joined a private organization to handle their legal requirements or do many use an evaluator? I am homeschooling my only child who is 6 years old. I fully agree with an "unschooling" approach, but I am uncertain about the best approach when it comes to the State.

We can also put our kids in whichever 'grade' we feel is appropriate and test accordingly. Mine are always in Grade 1 and last year we had a blast filling in the grade one tests, making a pattern with the circles. Each test had a different pattern on the score chart yet each test scored in the 60th centile. Not bad 🙂

Shyrley

An account of a problem:

I don't think you will treat her the same way afterwards, whether the score is low, medium or high, and that's a shame. But that's how people are.

When I was 9 (in 4th grade) we took an IQ test and my parents would not let me see the results. All of my friends knew their scores, but I didn't. I was so mad that I wasn't allowed to know! I was sure my best friend scored higher than me (she always did), so at the time I just wanted to know how close I got to her score!

Years later I found the IQ test results in a folder my mom kept of all of my achievements and I asked her about why they wouldn't let me know the score. Turned out that they didn't want me to brag or have a big head about my score because it was (what they considered) high. I don't remember it now but I don't really think it was even all that high, not genius level or anything. Surely they already knew I was "smart" by age 9? So a high score should not have been a surprise. I've always wondered what that was about.

At the time though, I thought it was because I hadn't scored well enough and they were disappointed. I thought they were protecting me from my failure. From then on I had an internal voice telling me I was not good at test taking. Therefore I became not good at test taking. If I did well, I figured the test must have been easy if even *I* could score well on it! If I scored poorly, I wasn't surprised, since I was not good at taking tests. (I think I still knew I was smart, but somehow was OK that no test could accurately prove it.)

I was a wreck by the time I had to take the SATs! Top that off by having to take it in a strange town (where my cousin was getting married) at a strange school far from home. I didn't know my way around or know anyone there and was so completely nervous about that, plus the actual test, plus the wedding, plus the knowledge that all of my friends were standing around together before taking their tests at our school. The whole thing was incredibly cruel.

So I scored over 1000, but nothing impressive. I thought I should have done better and blamed it on the extenuating circumstances. Plus the known fact that I am just not a good test taker. 😉

Try NOT to test, but for historical purposes, this used to be up in the middle of the page above.