What happened? I used to love school!

"But after years of rote memorization and drills, what were once intellectually excited and motivated five-year-olds have become bored or grade-obsessed teenagers. Their thrill over accomplishing real tasks and exhibiting real skills is replaced with anxiety over upcoming tests and a concern for high grades." - http://www.engines4ed.org/hyperbook/nodes/NODE-69-pg.html

My brother is so excited to be in school. He is in first grade right now. I have another brother who is a freshman in high school. Sometimes he would rather be shot in the foot then go to school.

So what has happened?

Why is school such a chore when it used to be a joy?

There's many reasons.

I am only going to talk about one today.

Standardized tests.

On the surface, these tests are very good. Every test is the same, every child has the same test, the same grade expectations and the same opportunity to get reach those expectations. But that is the problem with the standardized tests. Every child is NOT the same. Each child is their own person, they learn in different ways. A child is not a blank slate.

Blank Slate is "the idea that the human mind has no inherent structure and can be inscribed at will by society or ourselves" - Steven Pinker

Well I disagree. We each have an identity. No one person is like the next. If this is true for adults, how can it not be the same for children? Identity is "the condition of being oneself or itself, and not another" (dictionary.com) If children were blank slates then standardized testing would be marvelous. Each child would be born as if they were a robot, a computer just waiting to be programed. When the reached the age of 5 they would go to school and teachers would all need to have PhD's in computer science in order to be able to program them correctly. By the time they reached high school age they would be perfect children, always doing what they were told, getting perfect scores on every test, never throwing spit balls at a teacher. Every student would graduate, with honors even, and then, when they turned 18, they would emerge into society and finally become capable adults.

But, fortunately, this is not the case. Mothers often compare their children, saying things like: "he never cried when he was a baby." "she was so fussy!" "he's a mama's boy!" Why do children have these different behaviors? Why aren't all children fussy, or quiet? Why don't all children sleep through the night? Because all children are different. There is no norm among humanity, at any age. the definition of Normal is "conforming to the standard or the common type; usual; not abnormal; regular; natural." (dictionary.com) not abnormal. But, not one person on the face of this planet is the same as the next. so how can normal even exist? I guess then I could quote the Incredible's. "Everyone's special, Dash." "Yeah, which is another way of saying no one is." Yet everyone is special. not even identical twins are the same.

So, if no one is the same as someone else, why are schools giving standardized test, which are all the same, to students? I think they are under the deluded impression that all students are the same and will respond to the test in the same way, and respond to the pressure of taking a test in the same way, and give the same answers as the next kid because children are all the same.

NEWSFLASH!

They're not.