Have you ever felt stupid after taking a hard test? It’s more upsetting when it is the test you studied hard for right? The school system in most countries is getting tougher for students they are trying to raise their standards the wrong way. Hard test and assignments are used to evaluate t the students ability to achieve certain things. For example, numerous amounts of countries have entrance exams for universities.
The problem with these exams is that they are making them so difficult for students to pass.
They believe if students pass those exams they are qualified. Just because those exams are made to be very hard and challenging for the students to pass, it does not mean that they are better evaluations of the students performance. Kohn (2007) stands against this idea in his article “Confusing Harder with Better” and I strongly agree with his argument. The author claims that high standards on assessment never guarantee the students academic success.
He supports his argument by reasoning and elaborating the following points; how high standards affect the students performance, challenging and evaluating students, and the changes that should be done to create a better school system and performance assessments.
First, Kohn (2007 p. 122) If the latter can leave students insufficiently challenged, the former can make them feel stupid, which in turn can lead them to feel alienated and sometimes to misbehave. He also says, maximum difficulty isn’t the same as optimal difficulty (2007, p. 122) If students feel stupid just because they had difficulty on their test, they will lose their interest in their studies.
Students interest towards one subject directly depends on the teacher and the scores they get on their examination and assignments. Forcing students to take hard tests is not useful for their studies because they might end up losing their interest in studying the subject. We should rather keep their interests high and give them a fair level of good evaluation of their work.
The behavior of students is also affected by their performance on their studies. If they continuously fail on an exam they might start to misbehave in the class. They will eventually engage less in the classroom. They might stop studying hard because they are failing for the test they studied hard for. Since they have already lost their interest in the study, they will end up failing the subject. But students with good performance on their exams tend to engage more in the class, make researches more based on their studies and create a good environment with their teachers. It is very clear that how important it is to asses a students performance with critical questions not by difficult exams.
I partially disagree with the author on his argument Kohn (2007), high standards on assessment never guarantee the students academic success. High standards are very useful for challenging students to do better every day. Students will study harder for a test if they know it is going to challenge them. During the process of studying for a hard exam, they will get better in their studies. If the students are capable of passing the high standards, they can solve difficult problems and find solutions for unsolved problems.
The author Kohn (2007) asks if how many adults could pass the exams those students took. That should not be the case we should be raising. What is the point of creating similar kind of students that were decades ago when those adults were students? We have now more complicated problems in the world, the world is advanced in technology and has many problems which need solutions from the students in the future. The students in the school today are our futures. They must be better than the previous generation. They should not be like most adults now, they should be much better. At the end of the day, we are trying to produce better students than the average adult. Randy Moore (2007 p. 120) We cannot continue to equate higher self-esteem with lowered standards. If we do, we’ll not only produce students who can’t think but also students who don’t know what thinking is. Lowering the standards is just wasting the students potential unused. Lowering the standards, not challenging the students with high standards and assessing their performance based on it, is going to harm the students in real life. By doing that they are just left back in the world which is advancing every day.
Kohn (2007) Do we want students to be challenged more, or to live up to higher expectations. Teachers should train students to think outside the box. They should teach the student how to think creatively and logically. What students learn at school should not just be facts and formulas to be memorized. They should most importantly learn how to integrate the facts and the formulas they learned to something productive on real life. They should learn how to use the theories and test them practically in the real life. Kie Ho (2007) Their public school had provided these children with opportunities and direction. The author explains how important teaching a student to think creatively is important to a student. From my previous experience in my country most of the professors in the university, tend to make their exams very tough. They will get proud of their questions if many of the students fail to do it. The professors exam is based on how much the students memorized the statements in the textbook. They also try to evaluate how much a student can solve the most difficult problems which might not be necessary for the students career. Instead of challenging students with tough standards, they should be trained to live their highest expectation. They should be trained to integrate ideas and find solutions logically.
The curriculum used in schools these days need a reformation. Kohn (2007) These days almost anything can be done to students and to schools, no matter how ill-considered, as long as it is done in the name of raising standards. There should be a concrete and strong curriculum based on well-done research, which cannot be changed by someone whenever they feel like it. E.D. Hirsch (2007 p. 116) Because guidelines are so vague in skill-oriented curriculums, huge variation occurs in the content of what is learned from one class to another. The curriculums that are used need to be modified and specified for the students to get good content on their subject. Hirsch (2007 p. 116) also says “Because there is no consistency in what children were thought in previous grades, teachers have to make disastrous compromise ” Many students are being affected by the system, the smart students are being lagged back and the average students are being compromised. Jacob Neusne (2007 p. 125) on the article “The Commencement Speech You’ll Never Hear” says that “We the faculty take no pride in our educational achievement with you. We have prepared you for a world that does not exist, indeed, that cannot exist.”
The professor believes that the graduated students are not prepared for real life. These are the problems of the curriculum that is being used. The curriculum we need is a curriculum that engages the students more, develops their critical thinking and prepare them for their future life in the real world. Our curriculum should have core knowledge for the students to ensure uniform knowledge throughout a class. Hirsch (2007) “Typically, school guidelines are couched in terms of learning skills, rather than the content of reading” The guidelines that are being used are not specific enough. They are so general which affects how much of the content and what contents should be covered. If a certain school uses the same curriculum used many years ago, they are not preparing them for the future. To produce successful and productive students, we need a modified, innovative and advanced curriculum
To sum up, Kohn stresses raising the standard does not mean making the system better. He also mentions how the assessment of students performance is affecting students negatively and why it should be improved. Raising the standard does not mean challenging students with difficult exams. Raising the standard should be teaching a student to achieve excellence through deeper engagement and modified curriculum. We don’t need tough standards to evaluate the performance of a student. We need better methods to help students prepare for the real life and live to their highest expectation.
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