The Trouble With Modern Assessment by Ashwin

The Trouble With Modern Assessment by Ashwin - June 2015 Scholarship Essay

As a recent high school graduate, I have just emerged from the excruciating ordeal that is commonly known by the far too harmless sounding moniker of “college applications.” In a sense, this process is modern assessment exemplified- an endless barrage of menacing essays, spine chilling standardized multiple choice tests, and desperate attempts of stressed teenagers to build up immaculate portfolios. The essays were thought provoking (I thought plenty on how I didn’t know how to answer them), the tests a crucial benchmark for measuring future career success (The very first thing I am going to ask my doctor is whether or not he got that 2400), and the portfolios a great way to build confidence (I grew very confident about the future chances of my peers whose portfolios made it sound like they had already changed the world. My own portfolio- well that’s another story).

Despite the fact that my praise of modern educational assessment may be tinged with the slightest touch of sarcasm, I did not do too poorly on college apps myself. I emerged from the fires burned and battered, but also with a high SAT score, a 4.0 GPA, and admission to the school of my choice. However, I consider none of the forms of assessment that I had to suffer through to be ideal. Sure, those standardized tests, essays, and portfolios are important. They build on the basic tenets of knowledge and show that a student, if nothing else, has the discipline to follow the rules and survive in a competitive environment. However, all of them (essays, tests, high school portfolios, etc…) lack one crucial quality- connection to work in the real world.

One of the best ideas I had in high school was to actually follow professionals in the real world. The days I shadowed a doctor and strolled into an engineer’s office really opened my eyes to the types of assessments we ought to have. In the professional world, no one will care what my SAT score was or my GPA was. My high school portfolio’s shelf life pretty much expired the moment college apps ended. These forms of assessment all become obsolete over time.

What we need is assessment that actually assesses what matters and stays viable into the future. We should be asking questions like how can a student think on his/her feet, how can a student translate their knowledge to skills in the real world, how can a student maintain their ethics and motivation in a stressful environments etc… We need to take kids out of classrooms and test prep centers. We need to put them in real working environments and show them how actual jobs work; we need to show them how to produce results. A high schooler aspiring to be a doctor should be assessed on his/her skills volunteering in a hospital and working with patients. A teen on the engineering path should be assessed on building a tech project through teamwork and problem solving. A kid on the business path should be assessed on how efficiently he/she leads a group, markets a product, or manages a budget.

These are the types assessments we ought to have- based directly on the real world. Students can be assessed on skills that they actually have an interest in and that will relate directly to their futures. There are so many new and unique ways for us to move forward in this regard. Though I’m just a high school graduate trying to change long cherished institutions of common assessment (though a lot of my peers would use choice words in place of “cherished” which I can’t print here), I really hope my ideas will bring some change, one way or the other. It’s a part of what my real world experiences have taught me- out there, my assessments will be on how I strive for what I believe in and how I produce actual results.