You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.
Clay P. Bedford

As an early childhood educator, curiosity is an important part of a child’s experience. I strongly believe that if a child is curious he or she will be eager to learn more.

Assessing Young Children

I am sure that I am going to receive a lot of disagreements with my opinion of assessments.  First of all when I am talking about assessments I am talking about the standardize testing.  I do not agree with them.  I feel that there is too much pressures on the students to do well.  Then when they don’t do well they are categorized the next year to improve.  For example; my son was in the highest reading level in his class last year.  He did poorly on the assessment so now this year he is in a Title 1 reading group all because of one test….Students can’t graduate unless they pass a high school test. So what is the purpose of  all the classes they are taking?  Assessments need to be a thing of the past..Just my opinion

Assessments in Mexico

In Mexico the focus for assessments is nonexistent.  The country does not feel that assessments are important in primary education.  “In Primary Education no assessment programmes of the study plans are in place, given that these are of a national scope” (Barriga, 2009).  Assessments are only used when the student is ready for the university.

References

Barriga, A. (2009).   Assessment in Mexican education.  An excess of programmes and absence of the pedagogical dimension.  Retrieved from http://sisifo.fpce.ul.pt/pdfs/Revista%209%20INGL%20d2.pdf.

Empathy

“Empathy is the ability to be able to put oneself in someone else’s shoes and understand that person’s emotions and feelings” (Lee, 2012).   When school age children are assessed empathy should be included in their assessment.  The school district that my children attend has a zero tolerance policy for bulling.  Yet it still happens, and if the student is not a strong willed student to report the bullying it can and will continue.   “Empathy can also be an important factor in teaching kids what bullying is and how not to engage in bullying behavior. Teaching empathy is thus an important foundation in preventing bullying in school” (Lee, 2012).  Bullying has caused students to attempt suicide.  Bullying has caused students to change schools because the student doesn’t feel safe.  Because of these reasons empathy needs to be measured or assessed in the schools  to ensure that bullying stops in our schools.

 

References

Lee,K. (2012).  The Importance of Boosting Emotional Intelligence and Teaching Empathy to Kids.  How to teach kids empathy and emotionl intelligence and why it’s important.  Retrieved from:  http://childparenting.about.com/od/socialdevelopment/a/teach_empathy_and_emotional_intelligence.htm