Additional quotes regarding children

“You think the only people who are people, are the people who look and think like you. But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you’ll learn things you never knew you never knew.” – Pocahontas” 
― Walt Disney Company

“What we instill in our children will be the foundation upon which they build their future.” 
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

“A family is a unit composed not only of children but of men, women, an occasional animal, and the common cold.” 
― Ogden Nash

“Libraries allow children to ask questions about the world and find the answers. And the wonderful thing is that once a child learns to use a library, the doors to learning are always open.” 
― Laura Bush

“No child is born a delinquent. They only became that way if nobody loved them when they were kids. Unloved children grow up to be serial murderers or alcoholics.” 
― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

“Children are the world’s most valuable resource and its best hope for the future.”
― John F. Kennedy

“A failing grade does not denounce a child to fail in life. An IQ is what I would call an ‘inadequate question’, it may state our brain capacity or tell us how smart we are, but it does not predict our future. Happy Character Traits and positive Reinforcements will help a child succeed better than a number that means nothing” 
― Davis Carlson

“Secure attachment has been linked to a child’s ability to successfully recover and prove resilient in the presence of a traumatic event.” 
― Asa Don Brown, The effects of childhood trauma on adult perception and worldview

“We may not be …

“We may not be able to prepare the future for our children, but we can at least prepare our children for the future.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt

Testing for intelligence?

As I look at the whole child, it has made me realize that if you really watch children when you teach them, they will actually show an area that needs to be tested or assessed.  When it comes to math or reading there are ways to be able to assess and see if you need to approach how you teach from a different angle.  Sometimes it can be as simple as walking around to see how the students are doing.  Also if the majority of the class asks the same question on how to do something, that itself is assessing what they are learning.  Too many tests can really be counter intuitive.  There is a time and place for testing, but in a lot of school settings, teachers are really not able to have flexibility in what they are teaching because they have to teach to a test.

The area that I looked at was how school age children are assessed in the Netherlands.  It was actually quite interesting how their school system is organized.  When it comes to school assessment, a report for the students is sent out at the end of the school year.  There really aren’t that many assessments unless the teacher feels that they need to.  There is a compulsory test given to test numeracy and language skills when children get to group 8.  There is a CITO test that is given to test primary education attainment when children reach year 8.  This test covers the areas of reading and writing, maths and arithmetic, study skills, and an optional test for social and environmental studies.  I found it fascinating because this is definitely different from how we view assessments and testing in the United States.