Month: November 2022

Note: This article contains references to suicide and mass shootings. If it’s better for you to avoid those topics right now, check out one of our other articles.

I was on a walk last weekend and stopped to chat with a neighbor. She asked what we were giving my 17-month-old son for Christmas this year, and I told her that a miniature cutting board and toddler-friendly chopper made the list.

“A kitchen set? For a boy?” she asked. I could tell what she was thinking by the way her eyebrows shot up. Since I know her well enough to joke with her, I jumped in before she could.

“Domestic skills are important for boys too, Marnie!” I chided her, smiling.

She laughed, and we talked about how “rules” about kids’ toys have changed since her children were young. She conceded that maybe it would have been good to let

What is the purpose of assessment?

The purpose of assessment depends on a range of factors, of course. Broadly speaking, the purpose can be whatever the teacher wants it to be. Like pacing guides, apps, books, and more, an assessment is a tool a teacher uses to help students learn.

There are other forms (e.g., multiple-choice, performance-based, etc.) and types of assessment–benchmark, criterion-based, and norm-referenced assessments like the ACT and SAT, for example–whose purpose is often beyond the classroom. Many of these forms communicate to the families of students how that student compares to other students. These are usually age-based in K-12, so all third-graders can be compared. The utility of this form of assessment is fairly limited, useful primarily as a general ‘sense’ of how that student’s development compares to ‘what should be expected’–the expectation (or ‘standard’) being the performance of other children.

The trouble with these forms