Testing for Intelligence

 

Evaluating children's performance is a fundamental part of education. Children’s growth and development are greatly valued by watching them engage in activities in their everyday setting.  I definitely feel it is important evaluate all areas of development.  Evaluation is a wonderful means to diagram a child’s development over time, offer feedback to parents or help with classroom organization and control. Frequently, we prefer to engage in assessment because we see troublesome or risky behavior, and/or because we see “usual behavior displayed in unsuitable contexts.  The most important reasons for evaluation recognized are to screen for disabilities; to assist in developing curriculum and daily activities; to evaluate the effectiveness of a program or a project; and to provide feedback to parents.  In essence I feel assessments are a huge part of measuring children growth and development. I believe informal assessments are the best way to evaluate children growth because they are more relaxed and children are not aware that they are being assessed and mostly likely would perform better.   However any approach is only as good as the person performing it.  Therefore, evaluations are most suitable when every attempt has been made to ensure impartiality.

I did my research on testing in South Africa.  I didn’t find any evidence of testing early on the only evidence of testing I found was something called the “matric exam or matriculation exam.”   This is the final year of high school exam and the minimum requirement for college exam.  “Once it is passed students are said to have "matriculated".    This is much different from testing here in my state beginning in the 3^rd  grade  until graduation students are tested each year and in order to meet the requiremenrts for graduation senior must passed this exam.  Its amazing how different countries measures their students abilities.