When did we stop learning for the purpose of learning? When did we start being taught so we can take tests? Having advanced classes, such as Advanced Placement courses, for further education in unique disciplines is very important. Still, the reason I take a college-level psychology or statistics should be to engage in genuine learning about these topics. I should not be there for the GPA boost. Once I’m in the class, I should be learning everything I can about the subject, not confined by the guidelines of a test created by some board of people in New York.
In order for us to get through everything, notes and lectures are common, and deep discussions and creative projects are becoming more and more of a thing of the past. LEQs, DBQs, EBQs, and AAQs are all different writing forms that have a formula and rubric on how they should be written. Instead of expressing your own thoughts or supporting your opinion, you must have an intro paragraph, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion that meets the criteria of the rubric. There is no room for being creative or having deeper, engaging learning.
Classes that have a curriculum based on learning a test— be it an AP test, CAPE, ANET, MAP—narrow student learning, lower creativity, and prevent deep discussion. We are not allowed to dive into the complexities of topics or have arguments about what things mean because teachers must prioritize moving quickly to get through as many concepts as possible. The next formula that’s gonna be on the test is more important than the inner workings that make things happen.
I should not have to be told by a teacher, “We are not gonna go into that because it’s not on the AP test,” because they have to get through a specific curriculum. A curriculum that may leave out what the class wants to discuss.
AP and other standardized tests force teachers to emphasize memorization: memorizing specific terms, memorizing how to write a certain type of essay, and memorizing how to write in a way that gets no points taken off. Points are lost for forgetting to write a word one may think wasn’t needed or was implied, but it’s in the rubric, so the value of their previous words is tainted. If a student skipped the first step on their math Free Response Question, all the subsequent work is discarded. A student could have test anxiety, sleep poorly, lose motivation, causing their true understanding not to be reflected on the test. In addition, accommodations are often given in a one-size-fits-all manner that ignores the severity of mental needs and gives advantages to those who may not need them.
Furthermore, racial, socioeconomic, and language bias can create significant gaps in scoring as reflected year after year in AP tests, the SAT, and the ACT. With a similar group of people creating these tests and the multitude of confounding variables that can affect a student’s performance on any given day, the tests are faulty, and that’s outside of the issues with the classes themselves.
Teachers are also greatly hurt by these tests. They are restricted in their scope of teaching by the rules of someone else. A teacher may want to foster an environment of discussion and creativity, and may do so as much as they can, but they will always be confined to rubrics and deadlines. A teacher’s skill and ability are often attributed to the scores of their students on these tests, which often do not represent how good or bad a teacher they actually are.
Scores are often seen as a judgment of how capable students are, but comparing scores and rankings and judging students based on this fosters an overly competitive environment. The focus shifts away from development and collaboration and towards how one seems compared to others. It’s an unnecessary division that promotes a stressful and unhealthy environment.
The tests themselves are an issue, but the real issue is what they are doing to the learning of those who truly want to learn. Classes that could be really interesting, help students think about careers for the future, learn communication skills, build an understanding of the world around them, and even themselves, bleed from the wounds the system inflicts.
Education is meant to be “the great equalizer of the conditions of men,” as Horace Mann describes it. It should not be a battle in which the convergent thinkers and best test takers stand alone at the top.
We are meant to learn so that our knowledge is expanded and our desire to continue learning is fueled. We are meant to learn so we can understand the world around us and the people within us. We are meant to learn so we can teach, so we can have an impact on society and the people we talk to. We are meant to learn for the purpose of learning, so why did we stop?