Yes, you read that title correctly. In some ways I suppose many students and teachers really do see getting through the yearly push to "perform" on test day as something to survive. Actually, I can say this with some measure of authority-- I have been the math teacher crossing all her fingers and toes for my students to do their very best work.
But now we have school systems actually advertising the testing period as an ordeal to overcome-- as a competition about who made it to the end the least injured.
My fifth grade daughter came home from school yesterday with information about the theme for the school's testing week. The theme? "I'M A SURVIVOR"
That alone was enough to have me ranting-- how crazy is it that an entire year's worth of teaching and learning is being encapsulated down into one week of tasks such that we have to just hope our kids get out alive? Really? I am already not a fan of high stakes testing, and now we are equating it with a not-really-reality television show? I know that Survivor can be an entertaining premise, but is there anything about the series that lends itself to be a credible comparison to elementary school end of year testing?
Description of the Survivor Series...
Description of 5th grade Common Core Standards...
I linked to fifth grade Core Standards because that's what my daughter will be taking. I'm not seeing any real corollaries... unless we really do want our children to view their education as a game of outwitting someone else. I guess the rules of Survivor could be seen as the core standards our kids are expected to learn and demonstrate in order to move on to the next grade. And next year's classes are just a different season set in a new location with new competitors and different challenges. Again I say, REALLY?
It gets better-- There's a t-shirt to go along with this theme for us to buy. The shirts will have the words "OutScore, OutPerform, OutSmart" around the word Survivor. Here's the series' logo:
Survivor show logo...
This is supposed to rally the entire school community around the idea of doing well on the state testing, and I get the value of buy in and feeling part of a community. As an educator, I just don't see this as any kind of PR for the educational testing system. As a parent, I don't want my child to see her attainment of important academic goals as a fake reality game. This one week, one test a day snapshot of her performance will have much longer lasting consequences for her and her classmates than any council to see who gets voted off the island.
Or am I overreacting? I just don't want the vital job of teaching our children and assessing that learning to be seen as some kind of ordeal... or some kind of game.