I believe each children have their unique talent and if we have to assess children in one way, I
would say it is better to measure all the subject areas, including physical
development, music ,art, personalities
and problem solving skills. Academically, it is important to know how much the
children know about a subject to help them develop their interest in specify
subjects. However, I do not believe a child is not smart if their academic
results are not as high as the other children are. They maybe better in other
way such as some children maybe an athletic or they are good at music. Moreover,
personality should assess too; so that we know what kind of learning style does
the child learn the best.
Nowadays, children are exposing to lots of violent in media and
environment around them. Therefore, it is also important to assess their mental
health as it could help children to release their stress and prevent all these tragedies
happen such as shooting in school.
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I grew up in Hong Kong, China, and their education system is little bit
different than the US system. In Hong Kong, children from elementary school to
high school, they will have at least 4 formal examinations in a year. It
happens quarterly, where you will have a week called “examination week” that
you go to school just to take the exam for 2 hours or so. They do not have
multiple choices, most of the exams are either comprehension, fill in the
blanks, or essay questions. Student will get number grade out of 100, and in
the report card, you will able to know your ranking in your class and in your
grade in every subjects. They do examinations in all subjects including
physical education in how many laps you can run in 20 mins, how many sit ups
you can do in 3 mins and etc. They even do art and music. I do not really like
this system as it may affect a student’s self-esteem if he/she sees their class
ranking and overall grade ranking.
I am not sure if there is any system to assess children’s mental health
other than if anyone have concerns, but I strongly think that each child should
receive a mental health assessment every year. It will support the child better and benefit to the society if the child is having
negative views or stressful to be in the society, classmates, or families.
Hi Joyce,
ReplyDeleteI like your ideas on giving students a mental health assessment. This type of assessment is really outside the box, and I do think this would be beneficial for the students to receive in school. Not only will the students results of the mental health assessment be useful to the parents or health physician, but as educators we can make activities and assignments that focuses on our students shortcomings.
Elizabeth
Joyce,
ReplyDeleteI never gave much thought into assessing children's mental health, but after reading your blog I am really thinking that this would be a great idea. I believe that testing for mental health could help to raise red flags if there was an instance that could be questionable, and it could also help us to decide what type of media and outside sources are beneficial or even harmful to our children. This is definitely an area which could use further development.