I’d like to start off with this quote I
enjoy maybe you’ve heard of it
judge me by my size do you
now if you saw this on an SAT test which
multiple choice answer would make this
sentence most grammatically correct okay
I’ll admit this is silly Yoda didn’t
need a standardized test to prove he
understood the complexities of life and
neither do I yet I spent my childhood
learning to do well on the star test so
my teacher could earn a decent salary
and my school could receive funding now
every teenager in the country will grown
a dimension of the SAT or the AZT and
close to none will have any other
encounter with them and most their kids
take it too now I didn’t choose to
master identifying identifying the main
point of a passage or the quadratic
formula and while I understand these are
important skills they seem rudimentary
compared to the kind of understanding I
want to have of the world I like many of
my colleagues feel lost but maybe we
wouldn’t be so lost if we were given a
time and a place to explore our
interests I’ve known to communities that
have dramatically shaped my own and many
more people’s lives and have given
students that opportunity to find their
true passion one is the educational
system in the country of Finland and the
other is an experience for high school
sophomores juniors and seniors called a
semester school established here in the
US as for Finland the fundamental
difference is that there is one
standardized test called the
matriculation exam taken at the end of
high school where as students here take
an average of 113 standardized tests
from elementary to high school it makes
you feel cheated right how come I had to
take that star test in fifth grade while
the finished students were off playing
Durden during their 75 minute recess
with no homework I know I made you
little jealous there here’s the logic
behind their method the young students
in primary and lower secondary education
spend just above six thousand hours in
compulsory instruction allowing them
ample time to learn from authentic
experiences while US students spent
around nine thousand hours in school
while the students are out of school the
teachers are busy planning lessons
making every minute of class time when a
preparation and productivity and
allowing their curriculum to include
subjects such as philosophy
environmental science home economics and
ethics along with two required foreign
languages and all the basics covered
here in the US almost none of the
curriculum is developed for strict use
on the national level nor is it
influenced by any private corporations
standardized tests are subsequently
replaced by individual qualitative
feedback and real work real examples of
students work and capabilities if that’s
not convincing enough to show how well
their system works take a look at the
OECD rankings these are the results from
the paisa a test administered by OECD to
measure the proficiency of education
systems in 35 countries now as you can
see here Finland scores are much higher
than the u.s. is and every category
except for anxiety which one would hope
to be lower right and while their test
scores have decreased in the past couple
of years
they’re again making reforms to their
system showing that they’re unafraid to
take chances in light of a better
educated public now for a solution which
to me is experiential education and it
consists of two components the first
being the students physical encounter
with the subject which will inevitably
be unique from anyone else’s experience
and the second is the students
reflection which allows them to develop
a conclusive statement on what they
learned tangible interaction
make a student more likely to remember
and learn the material I know this to be
true because I had this experience
myself at coastal studies for girls a
semester school I attended in Maine last
spring we conducted a month long
research project on relevant marine
ecology issues on top of that incredible
achievement which would have been
impossible for me had I not gone there
I also took an AP exam on environmental
science the semester of apes here in the
fall and the in-depth marine ecology
education I received in Maine allowed me
to achieve a high score on a
standardized test without being directly
taught towards it my success and the
success of the finished high school
students on the piasa is enough to show
me the proficiency of an education free
from standardized tests now I have one
major grievance with the education
system here and that is our education
seems to be written for us instead of by
us now experiential education and the
independent independent projects that
come with it would allow students
countless opportunities to pursue their
own interests
so maybe someone going into a bachelor’s
degree program in nutrition like me
wouldn’t have to start off from square
one in college another problem is that
with the without the development of a
well-rounded person in our education and
with the sudden emergence of the
Internet our generation seems to have
resorted to maybe less productive
hobbies such as googling memes or vines
like this one here up in the corner but
maybe instead we could grow up in a
society where students are encouraged
instead to look up the new issue of
national Geographics or the amateur
astronomical Association
instead of stressing over the tests
created by these four companies that
dominate the test-taking industry and
maybe it is too late for our education
our generation to receive the time and
attention needed to create such change
but that shouldn’t keep us from fixing
this issue from everyone else to come
we could bring education in this country
to such a high standard that students
and younger generations could easily
ponder the following questions from
Finland’s matriculation exam has your
body become your hobby choose three
world religions and compare the role and
use of a holy image within them in what
sense are Happiness good life and
well-being ethical concepts don’t worry
I don’t really know how to answer these
questions either I say ditch the
standardized tests because as we have
seen they cause undue stress and fall
through when the narrow slit of
information covered is not needed what
I’m not saying is that experiential
education is for everyone and who knows
it may it might not fare so well I’m
also not saying we should adopt
everything that the that Finland has
because we have a vastly different
culture from them but I am saying we
need to give something a try if we took
some chance then maybe the lyrics to the
Jimi Hendrix song are you experienced
could have a whole new meaning for one’s
life and true passion thank you [Applause]