Children are the Future

Viewing a young child as a whole would be hard to do unless you have had the child for a long time. To not know what the child has been through in life and the different obstacles they have faced. A child changes every day from school, home life and the people they are around. The assessment tests that all schools have to see where it is needed for a child to succeed and meet their potential. Schools are here for the children so they can strive to succeed, not have a low self-esteem about failing and becoming a nothing. All children have potential and some have a different way of learning, but it does not mean they are any different. A teacher would not know about a child’s disability unless it was told to them under confidential.

The Assessment Experience

For Students on Winning Streaks	For Students on Losing Streaks
Assessment results provide
Continual evidence of success	Continual evidence of failure
The student feels
Hopeful and optimistic	Hopeless
Empowered to take productive action	Initially panicked, giving way to resignation
The student thinks
It's all good. I'm doing fine.	This hurts. I'm not safe here.
See the trend? I succeed as usual.	I just can't do this . . . again.
I want more success.	I'm confused. I don't like this—help!
School focuses on what I do well.	Why is it always about what I can't do?
I know what to do next.	Nothing I try seems to work.
Feedback helps me.	Feedback is criticism. It hurts.
Public success feels good.	Public failure is embarrassing.
The student becomes more likely to
Seek challenges.	Seek what's easy.
Seek exciting new ideas.	Avoid new concepts and approaches.
Practice with gusto.	Become confused about what to practice.
Take initiative.	Avoid initiative.
Persist in the face of setbacks.	Give up when things become challenging.
Take risks and stretch—go for it!	Retreat and escape—trying is too dangerous!
These actions lead to
Self-enhancement	Self-defeat, self-destruction
Positive self-fulfilling prophecy	Negative self-fulfilling prophecy
Acceptance of responsibility	Denial of responsibility
Manageable stress	High stress
Feeling that success is its own reward	No feelings of success; no reward
Curiosity, enthusiasm	Boredom, frustration, fear
Continuous adaptation	Inability to adapt
Resilience	Yielding quickly to defeat
Strong foundations for future success	Failure to master prerequisites for future success

(Stiggins, 2007)

The assessment provides both students and teachers with clear information in a form they can use immediately to improve performance for each child. As you can see on the chart of the differences from a child who is capable of succeeding and their outlook from a child who is failing and their outlook of failing. To keep that from happening, the teachers and students need to partner up to meet their fullest potential.

In other countries, I did Africa and their assessment with children. External examinations have played a major role throughout the history of modern education in Africa. The most important of which is to select students for successive level in the educational system. Unfortunately, Africa has been criticized for their quality. Their examinations are very limited in the areas of knowledge and skills that they assess, their knowledge and skills are through everyday life outside of school and measured achievement at a low classification level (Kellaghan & Greaney, 2004).

Kellghan, T. & Greaney, V. (2004) Assessing Student Learning in Africa. Retrieved from

 https://books.google.com/bookshl=en&lr=&id=LCBB1in38ucC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Assessing+student+learning+in+Africa&ots=aJhHLlES37&sig=K0HYLzNePpjVsQ4Qysn17NlBiXo#v=onepage&q=Assessing%20student%20learning%20in%20Africa&f=false 

Stiggins, Rick. (2007). Assessment Through the Children's Eyes. Retrieved from

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/may07/vol64/num08/Assessment-Through-the-Student's-Eyes.aspx