Testing. National standards. Authentic assessment. Natural assessment. SATs. ACTs. PSATs. SSATs. Iowas. Californias. State standards. Evaluation. Performance standards. Since A Nation at Risk first hit the streets in 1983, we have been continually bombarded with the word “test” and the various euphemisms for it.
Recently, especially throughout the 1980s, tests did a great disservice to children in this nation. Standardized, norm-referenced test results were taken as valid indications that children don't know very much. Now, however, we have overcome that myth. We're going to use authentic (or natural) assessment, which will show that children do know and can do many things after all.
Although, of course, good teachers have had students engaged in real-world activities and simulations for years, the trend toward authentic assessment will enhance the teaching of social studies, which lends itself to such learning. It will also settle a long-running dispute about what social studies is.
On one side of this debate, social studies, and especially the study of history within it, is essentially viewed as preparation to play Trivial Pursuit. Social studies is equated with the key facts of history, geography, government, and economics, suitably watered down for children. E. D. Hirsch, Jr. is in this camp (with his 64-page list of facts to know), as are many school critics who have not set foot in a school in years and the too many teachers who proudly dwell endlessly on facts.
In short, a sizable part of the public and some educators believe that a subject like history is just trivia, though oxymoronically, important trivia. This view is only a slight improvement on Henry Ford's definition of history (“bunk”) and Napoleon's (“lies agreed upon”).
On the other side of the debate are those who believe that a one-damn-fact-after-another approach is not only deadening, but that it does not accomplish the main goal of social studies, which is the preparation of children for citizenship.
As this debate has proceeded, the idea of authentic learning and assessment (the two are inextricably intertwined) has been widely accepted by education leaders (such as Grant Wiggins), in professional literature, and in grassroots curriculum development activities.
Authentic learning and assessment are highly compatible with the nature and purpose of social studies. Adults use the intellectual skills that social studies encompasses in their daily lives. Children, too, want real-world activities that enable them to influence the world that they will inherit. If authentic learning and assessment come into social studies, the facts-only approach goes out. The real-world activities of authentic learning and assessment involve much more than facts.
For example, in life, performance is not a matter of how well one fills in blanks or selects correct answers to multiple-choice questions. One is judged on what one can do with concepts, attitudes and values, and intellectual skills (like making decisions, solving problems, thinking critically, separating fact from opinion, making sense of a barrage of data, and getting along with other people).
Further, in the real world, people work in groups, not to memorize facts, but to gather, evaluate, and use knowledge and skills to solve problems. More and more, teachers and students are working in groups, too. The assessment of performance in such groups must go far beyond narrow views of teaching and testing.
What might authentic learning and assessment look like in social studies? How authentic, for example, can we at the end of the 20th century make the mid-19th century American Civil War?
As a good beginning, we can refrain from saying that we “teach the Civil War. ” Instead, we teach about the concept of civil war, with all its ramifications: war, peace, conflict resolution, and so on. Of course, content about the U.S. Civil War can be used to help students learn about the concept of civil war.
In an authentic assessment in a unit on civil war, students might be asked to bring in a newspaper clipping that focuses on a war or conflict occurring somewhere in the world today. In groups, students would decide if the action described in the article is a civil war, and then they would explain their decision to the rest of the class.
With this kind of approach, social studies is not a trivial pursuit, nor is it in pursuit of trivia.
