Effective Programs and Practices

I am now onto my third class in completing my masters degree! I hope that this journey gives me more insights into the field in which I love.

Children Are Inspiring

Another graduate class is over, and I am filled with more knowledge and hope to help change more children's lives. Thank you to all my colleges at Walden University to help me grow and learn this quarter. I leave you with this little video that is inspiring to me and would be great to share with my students for many years to come. Remember - you can do anything as long as you truly want to!


You Can Do It! - Wisie for Children Inspirational Video - YouTube

Testing for Intelligence?

When looking at children at testing within children, I do not believe that most assessments truly are based on the “the whole child”. When looking at the whole child and the idea of a whole child, I am looking at every single aspect of the child. This includes but is not limited to: gross motor skills, writing skills, emotional traits, temperament, cognitive thinking skills, application of problems, vision, hearing, the senses, how the child communicates, etc. Without looking at EVERY aspect of a child, it is not fair to assume their intelligence based on a paper/pencil test. I feel that in education we do focus on these types of tests. These tests are important for funding of schools and rating of schools. Is that truly fair? Some children do not perform as well on these types of tests because of the pressure and the stigma that goes with them. I wish that testing would include all types of a child to get better and more accurate scores of how a child learns and shows their intelligence. I think with the process to the common core standards for some states it will encompass more application and technology pieces into the test. Hopefully one day, every skill in some way will be encompassed into the test to show that child and the school what their strengths and weaknesses are as a individual and as a whole group. Funding and ratings should be based off of these aspects.

When looking at the country where I live and how we assess children, it makes me wonder how children in different parts around the world are assessed. I looked up England to see how the people their view assessments and what an assessment looks like over there. From the United States to England, there is not much difference on the pencil/paper tests. The students are given longer “holidays” but most attend school year round. They have four steps of education, just how we do in the United States. We have preschool, elementary school, middle school, and high school. They have nursery, primary education, secondary education, and tertiary education. They do have the same concepts being taught in school as well.  Their funding is not based off of test scores though. Their test scores are needed for the students to get into other specialty schools that are not government funded and to go to college. Instead, as I read and found out, most schools are given the same money from the government, but the community tax is the most important when funding schools. The English also have a very big drive on children that are developing properly and on time with the norms. Their education website has great ideas and forms for this. Look at

http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_4008144

for more information.

In conclusion, I would love to have children in the U.S. be academically based off of different tests that truly show every type of learning style to better interpret these scores and have a better understanding of the children in this country. I know this might be years away, but hopefully it will happen soon.