The other day my 12 year old nephew called to ask about a class assignment. He had to select a word to describe a boy who helped his team by allowing another teammate to score the winning point. I suggested team player. He felt the word generous described the boy’s actions.
I explained that although the boy was generous maybe there was a word more applicable to the situation. He was confident and insisted his selection was best. He said, “Trust me on this, generous is the word to use.”
Whether or not it was the absolute best word to use, he evaluated his decision, thought about his answer, compared it to other options and came to a conclusion. And you know what? For a 12 year old boy, generous probably was the better answer. How many 12 year old kids use the word team player!
Evaluation of matter learned is an integral part of education. We need to have a clear idea of why we are evaluating students, how we are evaluating them, and what we are going to do with the findings of our evaluation. Further, since this is an exercise in which both educators and students participate, we need to be unambiguous about why we engage in this exercise.
Purpose of Evaluation
Evaluation, in its essence, means an appraisal of certain criteria that educators feel are germane to a student’s education. They need to gauge where the child is. Evaluation is not merely an assessment of subject matter learned, it gives weight to many other qualities that are being learned and cultivated by the student in pursuit of education. Evaluation is a learning process. For the educator, it is a measure of how effective the classroom instruction is, where strengths and weak points are, and importantly, whether the educator has been successful in creating a love for learning in the student.
Since we live in a world where there is an explosion of information, students are in a situation where there is a surfeit of information on every possible topic. The student needs to learn how to sift this information to get only what is needed. Evaluation helps here.
Increasingly, too, and rather unfortunately, the world is becoming fiercely competitive. Not every student is competitive by nature. Properly created evaluation systems have these kinds of students in mind. It is a rude fact of life, sadly, that one cannot escape the negative effects of evaluation. The only thing that can be done is to prepare students to cope with it.
Evaluation and the Education Process
Different kinds of evaluation methods are created for every age level. Even if a child is not competitive, the child has to learn to evaluate what is being learned. If a child learns young, that evaluation is a helpful tool, the child will not be intimidated by it. This is important, and the child will be in good stead all through the educational process. If we believe that education is a preparation for life, then the sooner children learn to be part of an evaluation process, the better. Right through life there is some kind of evaluation or the other.
Role of Reasoning and Reflection
More and more, educators are moving away from the narrow confines of the subject matter and mere acquisition of knowledge, and including areas such as attitude to study, critical thinking & reasoning, problem-solving skills, analytical thinking skills, and preparedness in the ability to be part of a team, ethical judgment, intercultural skills (since we are living in an increasingly multicultural society), social responsibility, oral communication, writing skills, global knowledge (because the world is interconnected as never before), and adaptability. As children grow older, evaluation processes help them understand themselves and the direction their lives are taking.
Importance of Early Evaluation
The earlier the evaluation process starts, the better it is for the child. Here, there is a tremendous responsibility for educators. Education has moved from the boundaries of a classroom to the world at large. How effective are the educators in teaching the children, for whose growth and development they are responsible, to have the world in their minds? Where real educators can contribute is in devising evaluations that are humane, comprehensive and a learning experience for students.
It is a known and accepted fact that we all have multiple intelligences. How will we know our strong points and weak ones, unless it is by evaluation? It is the educator’s responsibility to evaluate all the intelligences as far as is possible, so that the child builds on strengths and copes with the weaknesses as well as the stress produced by these weak points. A child’s mind is both fragile and tough. Evaluation systems need to keep this in mind while creating evaluations for the different age groups as well as for the different kinds of intelligences. Challenging, no doubt, is increasingly necessary, important and stimulating.
Evaluation plays an important role in everyday life. By putting children through an evaluating process, educators are teaching them to use the same skill to evaluate all the stimuli that enters into their minds from many different sources.