Article -http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/nyregion/21testprep.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=education&adxnnlx=1258828538-55bGIOAGefQrEjbRtKVpZQ
This article in the New York Times basically writes about the epidemic of parents dishing out money for their children-four and five year olds- to be placed in costly tutoring programs to ensure better performance on aptitude tests. With high scores on these tests, the preschoolers will be able to be placed in Gifted programs at numerous public schools. This whole fad has arose due to the fact that parents can no longer afford to send their children to private schools, where of course they assume the education is on a whole different level than that of public schools. The only problem with this whole situation is that these tests are made to measure future performance and natural thinking abilities. Tutoring to score higher does not prove that these students will succeed in future schooling; it only proves that they can score well on the test at hand.
After reading this article, I was apt to question the parent’s faith in their own children. Why do parents feel as though they need to push all this extra help on their kids, as if they know for sure that they won’t succeed at all without it? When exactly did regular classrooms become this source of mediocrity and unproductiveness, and gifted classrooms became the only place that a child can “really learn”? Also, we are talking about kindergarten and preschool classes right now. We aren’t speaking about AP level high school courses. Kindergarten and preschool classes teach basics that most parents can teach without assistance. The idea that parents feel that their child needs to be in these programs, even if it means paying a few thousand dollars on prep courses, is rather ridiculous. It’s frustrating also because the parents are not understanding the purpose of these tests in the first place. They aren’t seeing that these tests aren’t supposed to be studied for. These tests are made to measure aptitude, not knowledge. Are parents in denial about this and just following a fad, or do they really believe that this is going to make a significant difference in how their child’s educational life is going to play out?
The article also brings about the idea that continuing the amount of test prep that society takes part in is going to make it the norm. That happening would allow for a big problem to arise. Natural ability of a student would be extremely questionable. If students are all placed in a gifted classroom, teachers would be unable to initially see their level of ability. Because of extensive tutoring, they would probably all seem to come in at the same level. As the year goes on though, the differences in learning abilities will start to play out. Gifted programs are essentially accelerated curriculums. If students with extensive tutoring are placed in the class, there is a chance that they will not be able to naturally keep up with other students are automatically were deemed gifted. This can be a problem for a teacher because he or she is going to have to re-evaluate their teaching methods and figure out where and how much scaffolding is going to be needed for each individual student. Essentially, the entire ideology that these parents insist are true, can’t really be understood. It’s added pressure on very young children and also teacher’s of these students.
Related Articles-
School for the Gifted, and Only the Gifted
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/education/19gifted.html
US. Math Tests Find Scant Gain Across New York
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/15/education/15scores.html
Smart Child Left Behind
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/28/opinion/28petrilli.html
Embedded Video (Youtube request no embedding URL for this video)-video of gifted preschool in WA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe8D_Y4cY00
I can’t believe these entrance exams exist for kindergartners, even more so, I can’t believe tutoring sessions exist. I already thought high school entrance exams were questionable, and so I think kindergarten entrance exams are just ridiculous. I can imagine the cost of the classes being anything but cheap and I don’t see how any parent would waste their money and time with them. I think that by placing so much importance on a single test, we are giving more importance to a single score than the actual knowledge. The children will learn that just memorizing and getting an A on a test is more important than really engaging in the material and learning it thoroughly.
ReplyDeleteLike mentioned by the author of this piece, besides the fact that four and five year olds should not be worried about these entrance exams, the tests don’t even do a good job of measuring their knowledge. It is just measuring the ability of these kids learning specific skills for this single test. Like mentioned previously, if the child is not truly “gifted” then it may hurt the child in the long run by falling behind in his or her classes. Being in normal level classes is nothing bad and we should not make children believe that students who are not gifted are inferior. Besides all this, we are implicitly telling children that in order to succeed at life they must achieve academically. We are leaving no room to other career options that do not have to do with academics.
When AP high school course were first introduced there was an uproar regarding the pressure it put on children who were not, and should not be expected to be, ready for college. Let children be children, college will come soon enough was the idea. Eventually AP coursework became the norm and ultimately these high school courses developed into college coursework; where students can finish both the last two years of high school and the first two years of college at the same time. Ultimately the student will walk onto a college campus at the age of 17/18 as a junior. With this push to mature and develop intellectually at a more rapid pace, it makes sense that this would trickle down to our young elementary aged children.
ReplyDeleteIn a society where standardized testing is used as the ultimate form of accountability, I applaud parents for finding alternative means of preparation for their children. I don’t agree with this idea of questioning the parents’ faith in the academic ability of their children as much as the inability of our society to accept the diverse levels of academic ability of all children. Our society does not accept all forms of intelligence as legitimate. Combine that with a generation of children who are pressured to mature intellectually before, developmentally, they are capable and you have a generation of remedial students. If a child of 5 is deemed remedial by the standards of our educational system, then it is in the children’s best interest to utilize any means available to give them an opportunity to succeed.
Our society is based on instant gratification and is breeding a new generation from which we are looking for instant gratification. Children in this society are under such an immense pressure to succeed at a high level and if parents have the economical and cultural capital to help their children to succeed then I wholeheartedly support their efforts.
I had the privilege to attend one of the elite gifted private schools from kindergarten to eighth grade. My admissions test? I wasn’t even four and I had to have an intensive interview process with the school’s admissions counselor—she asked me to draw a sun. So I drew a smiley sun, complete with sunglasses and a nose. Although the counselor probably gained a better grasp on whether or not I would keep up with and perform in accordance with this prestigious class, to this day I don’t think I understand any better what effect that institution could have had on my development than I did when I was drawing that sun.
ReplyDeleteIf getting into pre-elementary gifted programs so significantly affects a child’s academic development or future success (for example, their ability to attend a particular college) then education becomes less associated with the power of knowledge and more of an agency for constructing and maintaining social status and hierarchy. The admission tests given to kindergarten applicants are not meant to measure a child’s success potential (because no test can reliably or accurately predict the future). The aptitude tests are meant to determine what a child already knows. Extensive tutoring then for these tests could be more of a disservice to the kindergarten applicant. First, if a child needs to be tutored, given extra help, just to get into a gifted program, how are they going to fare once they are in this program—will the tutoring continue? Secondly, there is an implicit message being sent to young, impressionable, kids about learning. It suggests that education, even at for a kindergartner, isn’t about the student or what the student knows. Rather, it’s about how the student and his or her body of knowledge can assimilate, or “fit” into these programs.
To suggest that a child must “fit” within any academic environment raises a sense of concern. After reviewing the admissions website for the very program I attended in kindergarten, I noticed an overwhelming amount of references to the application process as way to measure how the “child would fit into the program”—shouldn’t these programs be oriented to suit the needs of the children they are serving? These articles demonstrate that parents are clearly going to extensive measures to prepare their children for these programs, but this preparation can hardly measure a child’s readiness for these programs. So, while buttressing the academic regurgitation skills of a four year old, parents and administrators are communicating the importance of socialization and assimilation that is necessary for their children to “fit” in our greater society.