Testing Need Not Undermine Education

Opinion

Lakshmi A. Kripalani

How can the Montessori teacher stay focused on his/her unique educational mission and still meet demands for institutional information and evaluation by standardized tests?

Montessori reminds us that no matter what direction we take we must keep the child in focus -the child who has the capacity and the potential to educate him or herself.

Educators can be so reliant on the mechanical information acquired through testing that they fail to look at the child's true formative characteristics. Without the cooperation and active participation of the child in evaluation, teachers will not reach their goals.

Montessori educators today are faced with many difficulties, including:

• How to evaluate the intrinsic value of children's work?
• What record-keeping format to use?
• How to meet school district requirements for standardized testing without interfering with Montessori work?
• What to expect from the child who is entering the elementary class?
• How to direct the child who hasn't had a Montessori primary experience or the child who lacks exposure to an enriched and complex environment.

Evaluation is the essence of life. We evaluate every aspect of our lives. Whatever action we take is an outcome of the process of direct or indirect evaluation. It may take place consciously or unconsciously.

Our yardsticks of measurement vary from individual to individual, from group to group, from culture to culture and from nation to nation. They vary from time to time.

The current crisis in education has created a mania for a single type of accountability-test performance that holds teachers accountable for children's success.

What is forgotten is that the children are an essential part of the process of education. We consider children to be empty capsules to be filled with knowledge that can be poured out on demand to prove that the capsules are empty, half-filled or full. We have lost sight of the basic issue that it is the responsibility of all concerned to be equal partners in this process.

Educators can function effectively only in partnership with children who are aware of why they are being educated. Children must be actively involved in their own observation and their own record-keeping. Only then do they share the responsibility for their own success.

In a Montessori classroom, the teacher is a constant observer who records all the details, analyzes details of the work of each child and provides necessary tools that would help each individual according to his/her needs at a particular stage of development. This is a monumental task for any one individual dealing with a multi-age setting. Yet paradoxically, it is even more difficult for the teacher dealing with a classroom of children who are approximately the same age.

In a classroom of five-year-olds, it may be difficult for the teacher to give individual attention to one child because each child seems to need attention simultaneously. In a mixed group, where children have learned to work independently, they are enabled to teach each other. The children take on some of the leadership role otherwise provided solely by the teacher.

Homogeneous groups provide fewer chances for development of leadership qualities. Multi-age groups permit a rotating leadership, which enables children to learn from each other. In a multi-age setting, there is less competition because students are used to seeing the uneven development of both older and younger children.

Children are more likely to recognize the unique attributes of each individual. The development of leadership enables the children to teach and to learn from each other. Each child comes to shoulder responsibility for another's development in one or more areas. Simultaneously, he/she maintains an evaluative record of that individual's achievement. Each child records a self-evaluation along with an evaluation of the other child. In such a setting, the teacher has colleagues in the evaluative process. He/she can collect from the children some of the information needed for evaluation. In the process of mutual evaluation combined with no competition, children learn to respect each other's successes and can acknowledge each other's failures.

The teacher's role then is to record his/her evaluation in combination with the children's evaluation. This is successful when the observation is clinical and active. Generally observation is classified to be subjective and objective.

Objective observation is primarily a mechanical recording of the activities and events.

Subjective observation occurs when the observer interprets behavior.

Active clinical observation starts with the parents from the day the child is born. With teachers, it starts from the day the child is interviewed for the primary.

Evaluation Through Montessori Materials and Activities

In the Montessori educative process a built-in control of error resides in every piece of material and every activity. In the early stages of learning this may be quite mechanical, limited to the beginning explorations of the material by the children. When the children have some experience, they search for their answers and control of error in books, in the dictionary and finally in the research media available in the libraries. Now this is done even for computers.

As the children learn to utilize a greater variety of materials, they become more independent, learning to be self-reliant and capable of realizing when to seek help from another child, teacher or from an outside source.

The very first piece of sensorial materials that the child handles is the cylindrical blocks. At this stage, the control of error is mechanical. If the child places a small cylinder in the large cavity, one of the large cylinders will be left out. The teacher does not intervene. Through trial and error, the child succeeds in replacing all the cylinders correctly. This forces the child to look and make judgments. At this stage the child does not become cognitively aware of the kinds of differences in the various sizes and shapes. Only after the child has succeeded in placing all the cylinders correctly is language given to the dimensions such as length, width, height, etc. There are other pieces of material that convey the same concept without boring the child with mechanical repetition that does not retain the child's interest.

In the third period of our well-known three-period lessons, we find out if the child associates the correct object with the correct name. For most teachers, the process stops here and the information is entered on the chart or individual record booklet indicating that the child knows the material.

This, however, is merely a mechanical, passive evaluation and is parallel to traditional record- keeping. However objective it appears to be, it fails to give any depth of information to the teacher or to the child. It does not give information to the authorities or to the parents. Most importantly, such an evaluation gives no direction for further exploration, either to the child or to the teacher. When the emphasis is only on the presentation of material, the principles to be learned are often overlooked.

Each item in the Montessori environment should be presented with a clear idea of what learning has preceded this lesson, and what principles need to be developed in each succeeding lesson. In the example above, the child may give the correct object or correct name every time a teacher asks for it. However, this does not prove that the information will be of practical application in another learning situation. In this sense such evaluation is as worthless as our current system of testing.

After sufficient work with this material and other sets of material that convey the same concept, we follow up with games that are progressive in difficulty. Children will be challenged to explore and to discover other aspects. Exploration and discovery is followed by questioning, generalizing and researching. One of the earlier games would be to go and find from the shelf another cylinder that has the same height or base. Later the child is asked to find all the cylinders that have the same base. Once the child catches the concept, he/she continues to explore how many other cylinders have the same height or if there are any other objects around that may have the same height.

The teacher's role is merely to spark enthusiasm. Children will ignite other children accordingly. When a group of children discovers that there are only three cylinders that have the smallest base, they get so excited that they will share the information with the rest of the children and each one will search to discover other kinds of similarities. They will discover that there are too many cylinders that have the maximum height or that there are only three cylinders with the smallest base. This encourages questioning, reasoning and later on generalizing.

Caution must be taken by the teacher to let the children do the exploration by themselves and not pour out the information. With enough exploration, the children find out how one cylinder differs from another and also know exactly in which block each of the cylinders belongs. The child may proceed to find other objects in the environment that have the same dimensions for comparison.

You can imagine that if this type of exploration is initiated, how much excitement will grow when the colored cylinders are presented.

The child who arrives in the elementary class with these experiences is armed with all the tools to acquire further knowledge. With the introduction of the ruler, the child is ready to measure all the dimensions and calculate the height, area of the base and volume of the cylinder. Because he has already compared the cylinders for size and shape, he/she is now ready to do comparisons in mathematical terms. At this stage these activities are followed by problems and ongoing weekly and monthly quizzes. The quantitative progress of the child can be conveniently maintained by averaging and summarizing the results into scores and percentages

In Montessori classes these experiences are not out of the ordinary. The only caution to be taken is to initiate the right activity at the right moment and at the right stage of the development of the child. It is through active observation of each child, along with the teacher's understanding of the child's development, that the teacher knows the appropriate timing for the introduction of new materials.

Experiences in discovery not only enhance knowledge, but this type of experience is never forgotten. Further, children who have already experienced exploration are ready to introduce activities to younger children who arrive later. When children graduate to elementary classes, they have mastered the knowledge to such an extent that they can help children who arrive without primary experience. This is the way one-on-one guidance is provided to children new to Montessori. Because of this sharing of information among peers, the number of new peers has to be controlled. Otherwise there will be an imbalance in the class for the children as well as for the teacher.

The record-keeping of the above activities provides the clinical analysis of the child's progress and comprehension of the concepts thus experienced. The teacher knows that the child has not merely mastered the activity but can judge the extent to which he/she is ready to transmit the knowledge to other children and is able to work within a particular group. Generalized remarks combined with the child's portfolio will give a true picture of the child's progress.

It will also fulfill the need for accountability. The teacher does not need tedious and boring forms to mark down each activity that the child touches, such as each phonogram. What we need is the summary of the achievement in general terms, such as "the child has mastered the ability of recognizing and taking dictation of words with almost all the combinations of phonograms."

If the class is functioning well, the results and the continuous record kept by children and teacher will reflect each child's involvement and progress in the class. The enthusiasm of children researching from books and libraries on their own time, and their interest in solving quizzes will indicate the progress of the educative progress.

The difference between the primary and the elementary class in student evaluation is that, early in the primary class, the evaluation starts with games that reflect the assimilation of concepts and simple problem solving and relevant quizzes that involve thinking.

In the elementary classes, the evaluation continues to be reflected through problem solving that enhances the thinking process and quizzes that test the depth of understanding, combined with the research activities and written work portfolios. The data acquired on frequent quizzes can be generalized in a short form and should be graded by its level of difficulty. These can easily be given by children to each other on a regular basis.

It is the teacher's role to give generalized quizzes or problems as necessary to classify the levels of difficulty, to vary the format and to make them meaningful. The variety eliminates the potential for mechanical, boring work and if they relate to practical life situations at home and at work, these exercises will promote challenge and curiosity.

The simple example given above was chosen to demonstrate the process of evaluation by the teacher that commences from the moment the child enters the class. Using careful, analytical observation that is clinically active at all times, the teacher has a vital description of the child's progress. The example illustrated starts with the very early sensorial experience of the cylindrical blocks and progresses to abstract mathematical experiences. Further, it clarifies the direct as well as indirect acquisition of meaningful knowledge that can be evaluated in concrete ways. Parallel concepts, which are followed in the language, are from simple phonetic three letter words to phonograms and sentences continuing with grammar, analysis and synthesis of sentences. Language continues from simple reading and writing to analytical reading, dramatic reading and comprehension. In history, geography and sciences, this same basic principle is followed.

If the format of Montessori education as expounded in this article is comprehended and put into practice, then the children will advance naturally and be ready to take any type of local test. The results will be sufficient to provide comparative data. There is the possibility of developing tests and evaluative mechanisms that reflect the Montessori process and meet the demands of school districts.

We must continue to enhance our understanding and application of techniques of Montessori philosophy and education. We must answer the demand for accountability and satisfy the authorities, despite the fact that their tests may not reflect an accurate evaluation of our work. At the same time, we must be on guard that we communicate what is uniquely Montessori, that we assess our goals and that our standards are maintained in order to achieve these goals. If the Montessori approach is put into practice, then all we need is to introduce the idea of testing to the children. The rest will fall into place.

We do not need to "teach to the test."

Copyright ©2006

Lakshmi Kripalani was trained by and has worked with Dr. Maria Montessori and Mario Montessori. She is an AMI Montessori teacher trainer and consultant.

Dr. Montessori's 1946 Lectures-Karachi, India, transcribed and edited by Lakshmi Kripalani is available through the Houston Montessori Center, 713 464-5791.

Ms. Kripalani is available for lectures, workshops or consultations.

She can be reached at lkripalani@comcast.net.