What are your opinions on testing (standardized or otherwise)?

Personally, I am not so much against testing as against letting children know that what score they receive on the upcoming test is going to indicate the child’s real worth/intelligence to us adults. The sneakiness and resentment this causes is the root of the ill-effects of testing in my opinion, not the fact that there are questions posed in the first place. We answer questions and try to provide the correct answers all day–that part is perfectly natural.

What if we could design tests in such a way that kids didn’t have to hide what they didn’t know, didn’t have to ask what was going to be on the test, didn’t stop learning when they knew they could achieve a certain score. What if tests were completely different? What if an adult spent an entire day with a child and noted how much of the time was spent in interesting conversation? What if it was noted how often the child interacted positively with those he met? What if different problems came up throughout the day and the child and adult had to work together to solve them? Maybe the two could paint a room. From scratch. They measure the surface area of the walls, order the proper amount of paint, pay for supplies, plan meals, set up the work materials, work together as a team, clean up. What if all these were evaluated (math, reading, finance, teamwork, responsibility, home-ec)? Better yet, without the child even knowing he was being evaluated in the first place. Are there ways to test–so as to evaluate the teaching method, not necessarily the student– without ruining the love of learning?

If you are advocating that our public school system convert to Montessori methods, I think you have to subject Montessori students to some form of testing to demonstrate to the public education system that children can actually achieve the stated educational goals of the system. I do not think that “Trust me, they really are nicer and more interesting people” is an argument that will be persuasive to a school board - even though it may rightfully be your ultimate objective. If you can demonstrate that Montessori kids can perform above the level of kids in traditional schools in those areas that school boards care about, that will be your foot in the door of the established school systems.

One other thing I like about testing is this - once out of school, you actually have to do things. You have to apply your skills to accomplish an objective on someone else’s time frame, whether you feel like it that day or not. Among several other uses, I think quizzes and tests are good preparation for this. You have amassed skills through various means and now you are asked to use those skills to accomplish particular objectives, not of your own choosing, but to the best of your ability. You have to deal with time pressure and you have to be able to accept an objective from someone else, even if you don’t fully agree with it or understand it, and attempt to accomplish that objective.

As I read something my 15-year-old daughter recently wrote, I cringed at the terrible punctuation. She has a much better grasp of most grammar concepts than I do (I recently asked, “You do know what a dependent clause is, don’t you?” She rattled off a rapid explanation of the different types and uses of dependent clauses, using words I had never even heard of!), but she has no idea of how to punctuate her sentences so that her thoughts are clearly and easily communicated to others. I think this is because, for a variety of reasons, she skipped the portion of schooling where we taught that.

She is widely read and interested in writing well, so you might assume that she’d be motivated to figure this out herself. But she hasn’t. She’s highly motivated to learn lots of things on her own - art, mythology, Greek and Roman history, how to serve a volleyball so you can’t tell where it’s going to come down - but not this.

All that to say, I don’t know what would motivate her to learn it, other than a teacher saying, “Here are the places you need to use a comma. Practice this and learn it, because we are going to have a test on it.” I do think there is a place for tests, and they can motivate students to learn something that is necessary, but not necessarily fun (the proper use of a semicolon, for example.)

I’m 35, got all A’s in school, and almost aced the college entrance tests. However, I have to refer to Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style to figure out the commas and semicolons; I have to edit and re-edit; and I still can’t tell when to use “that” and when to use “which.” But I love to play with words. Luckily, I learned to love books at home.

I’m so glad your daughter “is widely read and interested in writing well.” I wonder how many students out there have been turned off to reading because of being forced to take years of grammar tests. Having an interest in reading is key to constantly honing the craft. You don’t take a grammar test, ace it, and then “voila,” love to write, and write well, for the rest of your life. You also don’t learn grammar before learning to write–you learn it AFTER! Regarding speaking, any five-year-old is fluent in a language, but doesn’t know the first grammar rule. The child must have a love of talking first, in order to have the motivation to want to improve his speaking ability throughout his life-time (not just until a test is done).

I do feel that tests are a great short-term motivator. But so are paddles and double-fudge sundaes.

You raise a good point. Are there times when testing is essential? When there is absolutely no other way to ensure that a child learns something?

I too must edit and re-edit what I write. Reading over my first post (my first-ever post on the internet, by the way!), I noticed a place where I used a comma when a colon would have been a better choice. I also agree with you that simply learning grammar rules does not ensure a person will write well. I don’t think it’s an either/or choice, however.

My daughter and I talked this over briefly this morning. Because no one ever taught her (and held her responsible for learning) proper punctuation, when I read a piece of her writing and say, “This looks great - but fix your commas,” her response is “Huh? There’s a problem with my commas?” She doesn’t know where to begin to fix the problem. If, however, she had at some point learned the rules of punctuation, she would at least have an inkling of what I’m talking about.

Now, simply learning grammar rules, as you point out, does not ensure that she will love to write and do it well. That is where her own intrinsic motivation comes in. Once you’ve learned the rules you’ve got to care enough to apply them.

But you can’t apply rules you don’t know. Your contention seems to be that testing will kill the joy of learning, but in my own case (and hers) I have found it often to be exactly opposite. It is after she has been “forced” to learn something that she finds joy in using it. (Sometimes interest motivates learning, and sometimes learning sparks interest. She’ll tell you she doesn’t like math, but a few weeks ago she came home and said, “I just love the imaginary number, i. I love the way I can use it to solve problems.” She’d never have gotten to i if no one had forced her to contiue math into Algebra II.)

There’s a give and take there. Surely no reasonable person wants to make acing tests the entire goal of education, but I still maintain that testing has a place as a motivator. I’m pro-double-fudge sundaes, too!

I am the aforementioned grammatically-challenged fifteen-year-old, and double-fudge sundays have no effect on my grammar. Brownies, on the other hand….

I second the brownies!

I have often wondered if we taught bike-riding like we teach grammar in traditional schools whether kids would hate riding their bikes as much as they dislike punctuation.

Lacy, you mention there are times when being “forced,” through tests, to learn something is actually beneficial when the joy in that subject is eventually found. I think there is a key point there. There can be joy in ANY subject. But the act of mandating testing in a particular subject indicates, to students, those subjects having no intrinsic enjoyment–or else tests wouldn’t need to be forced, right?

In my opinion Montessori educators do not assume that every student will enjoy every subject with no adult intervention needed. But they do think the type of intervention most effective for fostering enjoyment is by invitation, demonstration, and “seduction.” They try to provide the conditions so as to grow the enthusiasm in the student to learn more about grammar, rather than flat-out telling the student all the grammar rules known to man. I agree with you that students need some type of motivation for some subjects. I also think there are better long-term motivators for humans than testing. Testing is just easier and instantly gratifying to teachers and administrators.(And the “enjoyment” I’m talking about here is a “keen interest,” not a “ha-ha, aren’t we having fun in class today!”)

I have been a Montessori elementary guide for almost 20 years, as well as having state education credentials. Testing is not a motivator for learning, if you believe learning is integrating information and/or skills and/or applications with permanence and long-term utility/access. I have never seen a child motivated to ‘learn’ for a test, just cram for it.
The world is changing dramatically every day. Each of us is compelled to know for ourselves, without need or judgement or control. Life takes care of itself, when we do, or not. The world of communication is so very different from just 5 years ago, let alone 10 or 20, the rules of learning have morphed beyond our imagination. As adults we need to get over the idea that education and learning have a certain profile and recognize it is highly individualized if we are to meet ALL of the world’s needs. You and I need committed truck drivers and farmers as much as, if not more, than doctors and lawyers. Every person is entitled to their own passions and drives and needs. Let us provide places where humans are free to learn and develop without prescription. I have never seen more joyful learning than that which occurs in our Montessori environments. Our children take the mandated state tests because we are a public Montessori, but they don’t provide anything we don’t already know about each child, and by the time they are in high school, they perform well because they learned how to learn, how to process before they had to produce.
One final point, is the inordinate amount of time it takes to give the tests, and the immense delay in receiving the scores, valuable learning time has been lost, and the picture of each child typically has changed, some very dramatically. I think capable, conscientious Montessori guides, follow each child and know more information about how to support the children than any test will ever provide.

There’s a lot of truth here I can agree with. Yes, we need people to follow their passions, and to let those passions drive their learning. Yes, we should try to entice and “seduce” students. Yes, many students do cram for many tests. (I am privileged to live with a student who actually tries to learn the material as she goes along so that tests are no big deal to her, but I know she’s not the norm.) Yes, (though no one has yet said this outright) the state-mandated standarized tests are evil.

However, I just can’t get past the notion that there are some things we need to learn, that most of us will not learn, unless we are told we need to learn them, and are held accountable for them. One question I’ve been pondering is, “Just what are those things we all need to learn?” I personally think that calculus is outside of those bounds - there’s no need for non-math people to struggle with math to that level. Reading is probably within those bounds - most all of us, in this society, need to read and are capable of learning to read. (And, yes, there is an intrinsic joy in reading that we should be tapping to teach it.)

What else? To be a good citizen of the US, should we have an awareness of how this country was founded? I would think a case could be made for that. Those principles come to us from ancient Greece and Rome - to fully understand what we’ve done, you need to understand their culture. But does my garbage man really need to have read the Illiad and the Odyssey? Probaby not. So, yeah, learning should be individualized to some degree.

So to bring this full circle, I guess what I’m trying to say from an outsider’s perspective is that Montessori education seems a little hit-or-miss, a little rambling. (Our current public education is often one-size-fits-all, and that’s not good either.) What would Montessori argue are the essentials every citizen should know? What happens if I can’t be enticed (by some intrinsic joy) to learn one of those essentials?

I admit it. I can’t guarantee that every Montessori student will learn every “essential” that an administrator can come up with (can any other school?). And I can’t even give you a number on how Montessori students are performing such as “50% of Montessori students can’t tie their shoes.” People are “rambling.” We have different interests and strengths. Theoretically, some Montessori students might not ever learn to read. That being said, I’ve never met nor heard of one. The fact that a student could theoretically not learn to read is not a flaw of Montessori, it is a strength. Montessori teachers don’t look at their students and say to themselves, “Oh no, if I don’t do this and this, my students will fail.” Instead, they look at their students and say, “How can I get out of the way so my students can succeed?”

Our world is fascinating to us. Humans are fascinating. People are eager to learn both the “essentials” and the non-essentials. What’s essential is that we don’t kill that desire.

Test taking is a valuable skill and relevant in our lives today. It should be taught as a genre: just as we explore science fiction or text features in reference materials. It can be a work on the shelf that children choose just like the grammar boxes. children like to test each other naturally, as one way to gain knowledge. Montessori includes informal assessments everywhere: it is the third period of the 3 period lesson.
The danger is when we adults put excessive pressure on our children to perform on high stakes tests. When too much focus is placed on the product, rather than the process it keeps children from learning for its own sake.
I am leaving the public Montessori school I am at because in its goals for higher test scores, they are forgetting about creating a strong Montessori base that will naturally create it. We have to have enough faith in the child that if they are given a full Montessori education, we do not have to worry about how well they do (giving our children test anxiety at a young age). Anyone who has a wide knowledge base and good logic and deductive reasoning skills will do well.
Two experiences at this school alarmed me: one, being told by my younger child’s teacher that he should be held back a grade purely for reasons relating to his performance on standardized tests (he is in first grade!) and two, being told by my other child about extra coaching that took place during the test that I know to be unethical and illegal.
We have to prepare children for the realities of test taking just as we teach them how to tie their shoes, wash a table, write letters, read books, and help friends. It is a reality we educators should not run away from; rather we should embrace it in a child-centered way.

In Arizona all charter school students, like the district students, are required to take an annual exam. There are many Montessori charter schools in the state and they are consistently among the top scorers, although the students have little experience with formal tests throughout the rest of the year, and little time is spent thinking about or preparing for the big one. The annual test only confirms what we already know–the children are learning! The validation comforts parents, state authorities and even some Montessori teachers who have developed an appreciation for the confirmation that they really do measure up not only according to Montessori standards, but societal norms, as well.

Effective educators, Montessori teachers and others, view tests as a form of assessment, not evaluation. A good test gives us information about what the child has learned and what they have missed. It is a reflection of our teaching as well as their learning. In Montessori, assessments usually take the form of a three period lesson or observation. Assessments don’t have to be in the form of a written exam. If I want to know if a child knows their multiplication tables, I can give a worksheet, ask a question, play a game, watch the child interact with the Montessori materials. Our drama teacher, for example, gets students to use their bodies to demonstrate 4 X 3 as four groups of three (or three groups of four). The children don’t need a grade on this kind of test, the teachers need the feedback on their lessons!

How I use the information I get from an assessment is the key to effective teaching. Do I use it to label a child as an A student or a C student and move on to the next opportunity for evaluation or do I make note of the areas of mastery, as well as areas where there are holes in the learning and plan new strategies for reteaching, more practice work, how to inspire new understanding? Is the C grade the final answer for the student’s understanding of this topic or is there an opportunity to revisit, take more time, improve? Am I motivated by a need to give a student a mark or am I motivated by a sense of caring and support for this human being under construction?

We say we don’t give tests, but this kind of assessment happens in the Montessori classroom every day. Most of the time the students don’t even know they’ve been tested.

My son finished at our Montessori school and is now attending public school. The end of grade tests are the ones he minds demoralizing, though he did well on them. He says they show that all the grown-ups are interested in is how you look on paper on that test. Not whether you can apply your knowledge; or hold your own in a conversation about science, history, politics, literature, or mathematical principles; or did well in learning things in your day-to-day school life. He no longer trusts the administrators behind his school, and that includes the legislators who write the laws and allow the regulatory agencies to pursue limited standards that are often interpreted in prejudiced ways.

Though I don’t mind that he does not blindly trust institutions, I am concerned about the effects of these high stakes tests on him. He is struggling to believe that his efforts in school are going to be recognized by anyone - that if he could just pass the EOC tests everyone would be happy, whether he did his homework or not.

He will persevere, because he wants to be knowledgeable and intelligent, but he has become jaded about contributing to the larger community, especially his school, because he believes that his work ethic is not valued. No one in education gets bonuses and grants for having students who help others, use their knowledge at work, or volunteer in the community, and the higher levels of administration seem to think the bottom line can only be measured by standardized tests.

I had the incredible opportunity to meet Trevor and hear him speak several weeks back at our school. Thanks so much for what you are doing, you have helped further inspire me in ways I never imagined. My question to Trevor was specifically about testing, and how to get into college without traditional “testing?” Your book says it best… We don’t need a “test” to tell us if our children are thriving in the prepared environment. I spoke to a parent whose friend’s child had completed lower elementary at a Montessori school, and then moved to public school. She said the child was excellent at reading, and math, but wasn’t good at spelling. I had no idea what to say at the time. But later I realized what I should have said, which is “she may never be a good speller!” Are we supposed to be perfect at everything? I personally am terrible at math. Even in college I had to get help to pass the few math classes required for a BA in Speech Comm. I told a guide at our school a small story about how when I was in elementary school, we had to do multiplication tables each week. This involved doing multiplication tables in under a certain amount of time, and each week it was different, for example this week’s might be 6’s, so you would write 1×6=6, 2×6=12, 3×6=18, and so on. Of course since this was public school, all the scores were then posted as “pass or fail” on a board so everyone in the class could see all the scores. I don’t ever recall getting a “pass” on my multiplication tables, not once. I could do them, but not quickly enough. Another time I remember having to go up the chalkboard to do a simple math problem that involved a 3. As I begin writing, I (probably due to nerves) wrote the 3 backwards, and teacher laughed out loudly, saying something to the effect of “look, he can’t even write the number 3!” Of course the whole class joined in laughter as well. There is nothing quite like public humiliation for a second grader! It worked really well though, I stink at Math to this day, but I love music and have been a musician most of my life… go figure. How many of us have horror stories like this about Public School? Yes, we all survived the experience, passed tests, maybe got into and graduated college and got a great job. But there has to be a better way, and that is Montessori. Parents at the school often ask me how long we plan to keep our two children in the Montessori environment? My answer is very simple, “as long as my hands can work, so we can afford tuition!” We live in a small house, drive cheap cars and happy to do it! If a certain college doesn’t want them someday, that’s too bad for that particular college! Montessori Madness hits it perfectly, the most important lessons in life cannot be measured by a “school test.” How about true love of learning, good character, love of nature? Interestingly, a few weeks ago I had another great opportunity, which was to meet the Executive Director of AMI-USA, Virginia McHugh. What an awesome experience that I hope to never forget! Public Montessori schools are definitely something they hope to have in the future. I close with a quote from Maria Montessori. It’s the very first paragraph from her (extremely hard to find book), To Educate the Human Potential.
“We claim that the average boy or girl of twelve who has been educated till then at one of our schools knows at least as much as the finished High School product of several years’ seniority, and the achievement has been at no cost of pain or distortion to body or mind. Rather are our pupils equipped in their whole being for the adventure of life, accustomed to the free exercise of will and judgment, illuminated by imagination and enthusiasm. Only such pupils can exercise rightly the duties of citizens in a civilized commonwealth.”

As a Montessori parent, I’m convinced that the method works, so I wouldn’t prefer testing for my child, in that regard.

As a parent and high school teacher, I am concerned about the intrinsic motivation of my child and other children. One to three state tests per year, handled well by teachers, probably wouldn’t concern me much.

As someone who is passionate about spreading Montessori, I wonder if testing would help generate data that would support the argument for the Montessori way.

Folks outside of education need statistics in order to become interested or buy-in. If testing could support this aim and not have adverse effects on intrinsic motivation, I’d be ok with it.