I think most of my student learning experiences with curriculum would qualify as curriculum as product. This could be one of the reasons I am result oriented. I have often found myself upset because even though I worked hard all day, I did not accomplish anything on my list. I could have accomplished several things during that day, but in my heart and mind, none of them count, because they were not the priorities set out. Additionally, I tend to enjoy things for the end result. Even with something like gardening, which sometimes takes months before you see results, I enjoy the flowers when they bloom and the fruit and vegetables when they are ready. The accomplishment of knowing that I grew my own food is phenomenal. But I hate the process. I hate digging and planting and weeding. I get eczema where the dirt and plants touch my skin (must be allergic to something), and the creepy-crawlies inspire vomit at least a couple of times a year. But a vase of fresh cut flowers on my table makes it worthwhile. There have been several times in my life where I’ve wondered about this tendency of mine to overlook a great amount of work and progress and only deem the final result worthy of scrutiny. I wonder if it’s because as a young person, I learned that I was only worthwhile to my teachers and parents when I accomplished the task they set for me. Thus, I learned to perform the task in the way that was expected as quickly as possible so that I could get on with what I wanted to do. As a student in elementary and high school, I did not engage in the learning as much as I could have if the process had been deemed important.

Assessment kind of works the same way: I remember not caring what the work was, or even what I truly thought, as long as I got the A. I remember being told that A’s weren’t an option for me; they were an expectation. Doing the work was just a way to get the result, or product. My experience with assessment was purely summative, and not formative, in that the only feedback I feel I got was after the mark had been given and counted. I remember being entirely confused with my first encounter with self-assessment. In a grade 10 P.E. class, we were told that our self-assessments would count toward our final grade, and since we were able to give ourselves whatever we felt was right, I could not believe it when some of my classmates gave themselves less than perfect. Now I realize, that had the self-assessments been formative, I may have been honest, and used them more productively to honestly reflect on my effort and achievement levels.

This line of thought on assessment is interesting, as in one of my practicum classes, the teacher was informed that although provincial exams are no longer mandatory, the English department in the school wanted there to be a final exam so much that they had created their own, and each student would have to take it. The messenger also explained that it could not be open book, and the teacher could not mark it herself.

As the teacher had not planned on giving an exam, she worried that this would change how the students felt about the work they were doing and her class in general. It is interesting to note that when the students heard, they immediately began asking what their marks were at, and how much the exam was worth. One said, “I’m bad at taking tests, so if it’s worth like 20 or 30 percent, I’m going to fail.” The anxiety was palpable within the room in a matter of seconds, and students who had been previously working diligently on independent assignments which, in my opinion, showed profound engagement with literature, spent the rest of the block worrying.

The teacher expressed to me that changes like this can be really hard to manage, and to mitigate the potential damage to her students, she would need to find out her options to “play within the rules.” While it seems to be generally frowned upon to “teach to the test” I feel like this sort of situation almost calls for it. I used to be the kind of person who thought that tests were worthwhile, but the more I spend time with students and teachers, the more I question the real purpose of a test. I’ve heard some teachers say that it functions to let them know whether or not they’ve done a good job of teaching the material, and while I can see the logic in this idea forming feedback for the teacher, I don’t think it should count toward the students’ grades if that is the only purpose. I’ve also heard it said that test show whether the student was paying attention or studying, but since we know all students have different abilities and other factors that may override these abilities, it seems unfair that the same test would be given to different people. This question of tests as summative assessment seems to be a dilemma among many teachers that I’ve spoken with, and I am interested to see how the conversation develops over the coming years.