“Mag-aral ka ng mabuti. ‘Yan lang ang pamana namin sa’yo.” How many Filipino families have said this statement in so many generations? Such statement means children are supposed to get high scores to get good grades because the parents expect them to. If the child fails in the tests, his family (at times) brands him as “slow” or “mabagal ang utak” or maybe with some other dreadful words that seem to define the child. As an adult, how would you feel receiving these terms about you from your family?
In this blog, we will see a reflection on a Filipino family culture in relation to education and assessments.
In general psychology, human beings are automatically attracted to what is good. This is innate. This is also why we are attracted to children who perform well in academics. Usually, parents evaluate academic performance with report cards or with test results. I have not met so many parents who ask about their child’s learning progress or learning process. Rarely do parents ask teachers these questions “What’s my child’s learning style?” What’s my child’s personality in school?” “What’s my child’s intelligence based on Howard Garner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligence?” Normal questions of parents (which are often directed to the child) include: “Bakit ang baba ng grades mo?” “Hindi ka siguro nag-aaral?” When parents see low grades, they usually assume that the fault falls on the child. To the Filipino parents, test results—when high—would mean “matalinong anak” whereas when low would mean “b*b*ng anak.”
How about the child’s side of the story? Aside from the shameful brand that a child receives when he gets low test scores, “Mag-aral ka ng mabuti. ‘Yan lang ang pamana namin sa’yo.” also implies a huge burden because of the definition of “Mabuti.” This word definitely means good test scores and positive report card evaluation to parents. The pressure of impressing the parents or meeting parents’ expectation is on! What if the child’s learning process does not meet the parents’ expectation? Then, there goes the shameful branding again.
In this blog, I just cited two situations but I think these are enough to show us why students usually dread assessments. Students dread assessments because assessment results would mean either family acceptance or shameful branding; either parental pride over them as “matalinong anak” or parental sorrow because of them as “b*b*ng anak.”
In this light, having read the sources on the purposes of assessments, I have just realized that I have been totally unaware until now about the important roles of educational assessment in teaching and learning processes. As a summary, the bottom line of assessments is this: educational assessment, an integral part of a student’s learning process, shows how much he has learned or he has not learned—which should give the teacher a clear direction on how to help this student to improve and to become a better learner. Better teachers empower learners so do better parents as they empower their children and not burden them with high academic test results.
Better Teachers 