When I Think of Child Development & Special Thanks

I feel like the last eight weeks went flying.  Once again, I have enjoyed this class as much as I enjoyed the first class in this program.  I think about the continuous work we must commit to in making sure that every child is developing well with the support of all adults. 

  

When I saw this quote, it made me think about all the children around the world.  Indeed, children are ‘the most valuable resource’ they are our future generations that will carry the legacy for the future.  It is our duty to care for them and raise them with morals, values, and we must instill in them to be strong and learn that they can do anything they set their little heads to. 

I would like to thank Dr. Horton for always keeping us engage and for making me understand the material more clearly.  I would also like to thank Jacqueline Terrell for reading my discussion and providing me input.  Her sharing of knowledge and more resources made gave me the opportunity to learn more.  I also want to thank Lori Parra for all her blogs I enjoyed reading them and for sharing many of her life experiences through her blogs.

Testing for Intellgence?

Since coming to this country I hear so much about standardized testing and having to pass them or students will not be able to graduate from high school.   I believe in accountability but not to the extent in having to give a test.  There are so many other ways in which students can be held accountable and one way is giving them the opportunity to show themselves in the real world.  Students leave high school without knowing anything about life and what the real world is like. 

                For example, in my country Colombia students at the age of 15 years take an assessment called (PISA) it assesses the extent to which 15-year-olds students near the end of compulsory education have acquired key knowledge and skills that are essential for full participation in modern societies.

                 The assessment does not just ascertain whether students can reproduce knowledge; it also examines how well students can extrapolate from what they have learned and apply that knowledge in unfamiliar settings, both in and outside of school. This approach reflects the fact that modern economies reward individuals not for what they know, but for what they can do with what they know. PISA offers insights for education policy and practice and helps monitor trends in students’ acquisition of knowledge and skills across countries and in different demographic subgroups within each country. The findings allow policy makers around the world to gauge the knowledge and skills of students in their own countries in comparison with those in other countries, set policy targets against measurable goals achieved by other education systems, and learn from policies and practices applied elsewhere.

https://www.oecd.org/pisa/PISA-2015-Colombia.pdf