A NORTH American educationalist has said that school tests are “abusive” and children will learn just as well without them.
Speaking at NUI Galway (NUIG) Prof Eugene Galanter said that children should be “educated, not scored”. Tests, he said, “terrify children and parents, resulting in sleepless nights, and their only result is to permit one parent to tell another how much better her child is doing,” Prof Galanter said.
“The only benefit of tests is as a managerial tool for resource allocation,” he said.
Prof Galanter, author of over 150 books on education and learning, is working with NUIG on a pilot project testing his own assessment technology in a number of primary schools in the Galway area.
His company, Children’s Progress Inc, has developed computer programmes for young children to help educators pinpoint how best to challenge and support each child.
Delivering the Msgr Pádraig de Brún Memorial Lecture, Prof Galanter explained how the technology “captures every keystroke of every child in every classroom”.
This information allows the educators to examine what a child is and isn’t learning, and is “critical” to the teacher’s role, he said.
“Because the entire system is internet-based, special needs for special children can be identified, and every teacher, every appropriate school principal, educational specialist or special technologist, can call up with a few mouse clicks summary data for the entire classroom, the school, the regions, indeed for entire nations.”
The information gathered allows for “timely attention to be given to problems that may go unnoticed”, Prof Galanter said. The computer-based assessment focuses on maths and languages for pupils between five and 10 years old; the studies in Galway showed a high standard of education. Where there were difficulties, the children “did not fail to do the task – rather, they managed to learn how to solve the problem,” Prof Galanter said.
“Apart from showing that Ireland has bright students, this indicates that children can be taught by the ‘assessment’. The results demonstrate the universality of human natures and the ability of children regardless of background or culture to acquire the foundations of a universally viable education,” he said.
Prof Galanter is also a renowned scientist, and received the croix de guerre with palm for his service in the US army infantry during the second World War.
The Msgr Pádraig de Brún Memorial Lecture commemorates the former university president of the same name who subsequently became chairman of the Arts Council.