VANCOUVER — An international education expert has giving the thumbs down to standardized testing in schools in favour of a new approach to teaching that centres on a child's individual talents.
Yong Zhao (zhow), a professor of educational policy at the University of Oregon, told a crowd of experts — including the education minister — that the current system drives creativity down and discriminates against students with diverse abilities.
More than 150 of B.C.'s education policy-makers have gathered in Vancouver with business and community leaders to discuss innovative and controversial options for modernizing the provincial school system.
Zhao says standardized testing, like the Foundation Skills Assessment being administered in B.C.'s schools right now, is a external standard that does not serve children or help them grow into contributing members of society.
He instead suggests giving children ownership over their learning, placing less emphasis on basics and more on learning individually-meaningful skills and making better use of global resources.
The skills assessment tests, written by students in Grades 4 and 7, have long been opposed by the B.C. Teachers Federation which argues that the tests don't help students learn or teachers teach.
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