Testing for Intelligence?

I feel that every child show be assessed keeping the whole child in mind. Currently Standardized testing only assesses the “Academic” intelligence of a child. Every child has their own learning style and also a testing style. For example my brother cannot take a written test but if he was allowed to take the test verbally he would pass with flying colors.

I have always agreed the Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple-intelligence. He has broken down the different intelligences into nine different categories. They are linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, and existential (Berger, 2009).  

Thailand has been trying to improve their educational system since 1999. In their reform they addressed the reform of assessment and evaluation of learning (International Bureau of Education [IBE], 2010). They want to move away from the multiple choice assessments and move towards an authentic assessment (IBE, 2010). National standards will be set up to evaluate students’ academic achievement (IBE, 2010). Academic assessments will be done in grades 3, 6, 9, and 12(IBE, 2010). Everything that I read was basically what is going on in the United States. Thailand is focusing on the academic intelligence and not assessing the child as a whole.

I love this quote from the Berger text; “If intelligence is a multifaceted jewel, then schools need to expand their curricula and tests, so that every child can shine (Berger, 2009). I feel that this quote really sums up how I feel. I know that every child learns differently and tests differently. I can look at myself and know that I am very logical-mathematical intelligent but not very naturalistic intelligent. My brother is very spatial intelligent but not logical-mathematical intelligent. I truly feel that we need to assess children as a whole.

In the Early Head Start program that I work for we assess/screen the children using multiple tools so that we can get a well-rounded assessment of the child. We use Ages and Stages 3 which assesses the communication domain, gross & fine motor domain, social domain, and also the cognitive domain. We also use the Ages and Stages Social-Emotional screening which strictly focuses on social-emotional. Finally the home visitors take their own observations and the parents observations then they look at everything all together to really get a picture of the whole child.

References

Berger, K.S. (2009). The developing person through childhood. (5^th ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.

International Bureau of Education, UNESCO (2010). Development of Education in Thailand. Retrieved December 9, 2010, from http://www.ibe.unesco.org/International/ICE/natrap/Thailand.pdf