Somerville Teachers Association President Linda Vitiello (an elementary school teacher) tells a story about a child, a mural, and what paper-and-pencil tests don’t measure.
Continued from MCAS and Somerville kids, Part 2 and original post MCAS and Somerville kids: Adam Sweeting’s forum
Listen to the third part of the discussion from Adam Sweeting’s MCAS forum link
Linda Vitiello:
For many years, I taught little children. One day I was at the public library in Somerville—I was born in Somerville—and a parent there thanked me for being so good to Debby.
My being good to Debbie meant this: If we did a unit on Native Americans, Debbie would give me a mural. And I would unscroll her mural, and on that, Debbie showed me in a pictorial fashion everything that she had been taught: how they grew food, what their lodgings were like, how they hunted, what they did. That was Debbie’s form of intelligence. She was a very bright child, but I don’t think Debbie—this was years ago—I don’t think Debbie could pass the MCAS test.
So I guess my feeling is, I just don’t think [MCAS is] that accurate in telling you what children know, because it’s so narrowly defined, the way they measure intelligence. And I feel badly for children. It’s a very sad sort of thing, that we have so narrowly defined what intelligence is, because there are many forms of intelligence.
Posted in Schools and Youth
