Quotes and Thanks

"A teacher is a compass that activates the magnets of curiosity, knowledge, and wisdom in the pupils."
- Ever Garrison
"What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child."
- George Bernard Shaw

Anna and Randee I followed your blogs thoroughly and I plan to continue I really enjoyed your intellectual insights regarding early childhood developmental and the role caregivers and educators play. I wish you both great success in your endeavors.

Assessments

I believe we should measure children as a whole on what is considered normal development. Children should be assessed using a general test specializing in identifying if a child is on pace with the developmental standards, exhibiting any signs of delays. I do not recommend standard test such as an IQ or an ACT test. These test measure beyond the normal standards of normal development. The sole purpose of these test should be personal verses required by government or state. In the state of Ohio in order to gain admission into college you have to take either the ACT or SAT, the focus here is testing in early childhood but not every student excel at test taking. During early childhood the assessments required depends on what type of program the child is placed. If he/she is enrolled into a learning center funded by the Child Care Development Fund they requirements my different from a private funded learning center. All the feral and state funded programs here in the US has a comprehensive assessment across board. The type of assessment and what is measured depending on age begins to specify state to state. And next we can narrow down from learning center to learning center. Although there is a comprehensive assessment on the federal level. The true assessments children are measured on is state level or education center level.

Early childhood education and school age children in Japan are awarded with a great education. Fun, creative thinking, creative teaching and loving teachers all the words describing an excellent education system. Assessment or standardized testing begins in junior high school, at this time school curriculum, teaching styles and parents focus switches to test preparation. This same practice has been repeated for so many years the Japanese culture are remiss on changing. The same assessment is admistred to each student to determine their future.

There are no test available currently in the US to equally measure development. If research lacks the ability to formulate a measure for learning disabilities, how can they formulate a measure to go beyond the normal standards? What do we consider normal? Multiple intelligence addresses no human excels in all areas of intelligence (Berger 2012).