MAP

MAP stands for Measured Adaptive Progress. It's a test designed to gauge a student's grasp on reading and math; and designed to measure student's growth in the subjects over time. Little Miss Haana's school had them take the test at school for their kindergarten class. I hadn't even heard about it till this Tuesday, when they had an open house. The school had several informational sessions of 10-15 minutes about the MAP test scores. The parents had been give a flier the previous week to register for a time slot for these sessions. I never saw the flier. I think the pet ate the flier (thats my story, although we don't have a pet.. not one that's alive anyway). We went and sat in one of the informational seasons anyway, where the lady talked about how the questions get harder if the child answers correctly, or easier if the child answers wrong- to gauge the level of mastery in the subject. The test is conducted multiple times in a year to map the trend of how the student is doing. The scores are mapped against the district and national averages. And finally the students score is reported with their percentile.

I find myself half cringing at these occasions. I did my K12 schooling at one of the best schools in Delhi. Grades were very important in high school. The value of getting good grades was obvious all along. But what was not so obvious was the value of self reliance; to value what you personally like and pursue that. I do believe different kids have different skills, and not every skill scores high on tests. I don't think children or what they can achieve should be equated with a number/score. For that reason the test scores and percentile numbers make me cringe just a little bit. Hard work is important. But for parents to believe in their little ones' abilities is way more important, i think. Human capability is beyond miracles. Numbers, tests, statistics and even science cannot fully explain how we are able to achieve what we can achieve.

We didn't get Little Miss Haana's test results that day since we hadn't signed up for the session (pet ate the flier;) ). Miss Haana showed us around the school, her classroom. We saw her family tree on the wall, her flip book on Texas where she'd researched and taken printouts of various aspects of the state. We saw her write up about how to learn how to ice skate. We saw her art work. We went to music room. It was a fun visit! She raced around with her buddies like she's never seen them and they'd never been to the school at all!

Today her MAP test scores were sent home. I was telling her they obviously have not been able to measure how naughty she is. That would have broken the test ;)