What standardized tests don't measure | Nikki Adeli | TEDxPhiladelphia

so my name is deke Adelie I'm a junior at the science Leadership Academy and today I want to start my story by where it actually started it started in the 80s in Iran and it was during the Iran versus Iraq war where my parents were pursuing their college education and during the time of the war they couldn't pursue it because either the university that they were going to was up to par or the university they were going to was closed so they took it upon themselves that they had to emigrate from Iran and the reason why they emigrated to America was because they knew that if when they had started a family this would be an opportunity for their kids to have a quality public education that were prepared them for their career down the line so they picked America and out of all 50 states and out of all 19,000 355 cities they picked a small town in Mississippi in that town was Starkville home to the Mississippi State University Bulldogs and once the bulldog always a bulldog and I must urge how small Starkville really why's there wasn't really a mall I mean the mall that I considered was a Walmart Supercenter and there weren't many distractions as a child the really only things I focused on was school and soccer and you would think that if there aren't many distractions that there would be a quality schools in this town and as much as I love Mississippi this is where I learned to ride my bike where I learned to fall off my bike and where I grew up and I whenever someone asks me where are you from I always say I'm from Mississippi but the one thing that I questioned that I didn't have the opportunity to have in Mississippi was the ability to critically think and I know that there was classes like mentally gifted classes except all of my peers didn't have the opportunity to be in that class with me because you had to go through a test that said you were mentally gifted so you were in this exclusive class and even in this class we were taught to critically think through snafus puzzles and 24 math games and as fun as those were and the incentive to do well was you got a Hershey kiss or a jolly rancher at the end I mean I did well because I like candy but I really wanted to learn how to critically think in the subjects that someday down the line I would end up pursuing like math like science and like reading and the first encounter that I came across this was in the 6th grade so in the 6th grade we did a whole unit on the Frog and my teacher said at the beginning of the quarter is that if I wanted to dissect a frog I had to die I had to go through a test and I knew that I had to do well in this test because every day when I went home from school I always saw on TV that people like hillary duff were dissecting frogs so i had to dissect a frog and I asked my teacher what the skills were to do well on this test and she got down on my level and she asked and she told me and she cringed really big and said you need to memorize vocabulary words and you need to memorize the parts of the frog and at this moment I came across a question of what did it really mean to learn because neither of the two times that she had brought it up said he to learn about the frog you need to learn the vocabulary words and it was exactly this that took me on to this adventure of what was the potential for kids in these towns because they were said to be geographically disadvantaged even though you were geographically disadvantaged did it really mean that you had to stop the potential to go on and be competitive on a national level if you were geographically disadvantaged and it didn't and it didn't make sense to me and so I went out to seek out this question and they came across the concept of competition and this concept of competition was on a national level and many times you hear that I mean America is very powerful as a country but you always hear that we are competing with other countries and it's countries like South Korea for example and that if we want to do well we need to do something like people who are second in education so this is kimchi Kim Joon is an English teacher in South Korea now what makes Kim Cahoon different is that his salary is four million dollars a year yeah you don't hear an English teacher in America getting four million dollars a year um and what he does is that he runs a cram school in Seoul South Korea and it sounds exactly what it sounds like so he does tests teachings to prepare kids to do well on their University exam and that's the bowl for kids in South Korea because their way of becoming successful into doing well in their country and to possibly come to America is to do well on this exam so that's their goal so from a young age they're taught to do well on tests in that tests matter and that if they want to do something in life they have to do well on these tests another country that also is going in that type of direction is Iran more closer to home for me and for the past two summers have had the opportunity to go to Iran and to really observe the education system in Iran and get to talk to students and to give some background on what the Iranian education system is like specifically in high school is that your first three years are catered to a major that you declare in your ninth grade year so whether that's math whether that's biology social science what have you and then your fourth year is dedicated to do it while in the University exam and what they do is that they give you a multitude of tests to make sure that you do well on that University exam and when I got to talk to all these kids who are where I was teaching at one of the English schools was that they kept calling me lucky they kept saying Nicky show ma hailey ho Shanxi which in English means you're lucky and I stepped back and I asked him I said well why do you think I'm lucky and they said because the things like volleyball that we do and playing the violin that doesn't count towards what we actually apply to when it comes to applying to colleges because in Iran the way you get accepted to a top university is based on your national ranking on a test and little did they know that during the time that I was having this conversation with them which was last summer I didn't know that in Philadelphia specifically there were budget cuts budget cuts quickly targeted arts and music and after-school clubs and when I realized as I said well if there are these types of things that are being cut universities and other outside programs would have to focus on the test because that's all that's left and we as a country we don't focus on creating a good test taker unless that's what I think I mean the value in the purpose of schools is to grow a citizen and the citizen is to be a multitude of personalities it's up someone to open-minded knowledgeable and someone who in the long run can give back to their community however the way I see it is that this is not the way we're going because the majority of what we're funding is to testing and to make sure testing comes into play now which I'll touch on later and what I what I want to talk on is why I actually ended up doing this TED talk so what I first heard the theme of the new workshop of the world the first thing I heard was workshop and when I heard workshop I thought of a birdhouse now the concept of a bird has to me is that you build a birdhouse to grow and to nurture and to hope that one day those birds will make your birdhouse their own home I see schools the same way is to grow and to nurture these young minds into the future leaders of tomorrow and to grow them into citizens however if we are as diverse as Philadelphia is a nice diverse as a country we are why are we putting kids into standards to reach for them to then fulfill any sort of potential they might have and it's this that confuses me because 44 percent of students in schools right now don't even feel a sense of self-worth and it's this that we always applaud quirkiness and individuality in this concept of individualization that we aim for as a country that you're allowed to think outside of the box and you're allowed to speak up in class but we never advocate for it and specifically this so I talked about funding and when it comes to funding the first thing a talk on top of my mind is governmental programs and if you see here I've probably fine print but I'll read it for you so one of the parts of this back sheet says your state can win this grant that will only help students I'll compete workers around the world but also to fulfill their god-given potential so this is saying if you do well on the tests we will give you funding to then fulfill this god-given potential so you would assume that it would actually be the other way around if God is giving you this potential then thank you and then later on you see that reforms actually on the bottom of it says well this actually helps you compete on a global level it will help you out compete any worker in this entire world and then again this goes back to the concept of what is our goal in the first place are we trying to help compete any worker in the world and is this the way to do it is it to do it in a way that we suit ourselves to a system that doesn't even have the same goal as we're aiming for and I like this quote by Benjamin Franklin it's by failing to prepare you're preparing to fail now I know that the intent of these programs is we're preparing you to do well in this world but putting a scantron sheet in front of me and putting a pencil in front of me and saying that if this test defines who you are that's only preparing me to do well and tests in the long run multiple times we hear policymakers and politicians say we want our students to do well so they can take over our spots one day and to come up with policies to improve our society and the global economy however not even once our students in class and in boardrooms making decisions about their own education so what makes you think so what makes you think that now if we're not making our own policies and actually even giving our voice to create these on policies that affect us personally that it will happen in the long run and it is that thing that bothers me and it is certain things that paralyze students is Minds in this creative and innovative minds that come from all over that paralyzed us and that defines us and that thing is testing and I don't want to say that tests are bad because I'm not actually saying tests or bad I'm saying the concept of what tests have become is bad it's magnified it's become a curriculum that our aim is to do well on testing however the first reason where we implemented tests is for our students to do well in the world and I list all these negative effects however this types of these types of things that tests have become actually helped me get to Philadelphia so what happened was was that in 2009 I came to visit my sister for Christmas break and during Christmas break my sister and I are pretty evil I would say because we tricked my mother to move me to Philadelphia and my mom was like okay fine it's important because when Nicki was young her sister Liz went off to college so they need to grow some sister bond will stay for a semester you know so what my sister and I ended up doing is we found my mother a job and the today became permanent and so time went by and it came to the time of high school so when I got the list of high schools that I was accepted to the one that stood out to me was SLA science Leadership Academy and when intrigued me about this school was that it one not only made me responsible for my own learning but it also gave me choices and what made intrigued my mom about this school was that this was the reason why she had came to America in the first place is that they didn't abide by this system that the country was going in but it created its own path and that students would be able to form different types of learning skills and self-development to move in the direction of where they wanted their career to go and if it's anything that SLA has really given to me it's two things particular it's time and belief and specifically I want to talk about a program that's in SLA so SLA has this time allocated during the week for their students in the 10th and 11th grade to go anywhere in the city they'd like and to interact with their community and what you do is you form some sort of internship or some sort of volunteer work I personally formed a partnership with Penn medicine and with Penn medicine what I do is right now I'm developing the software that will ease the outpatient process in hospitals to make it a more faster and easier process for this Pitt outpatients to get home easier and to be back with their families and I'm not the only one making dramatic changes in their community so then there's no me know me as a peer of mine a close friend of mine as well and know me works with the media mobilizing project she's a student columnist and specifically her column is in is part of the movement that's pushing for equitable public schools and then there's win-win is part of the public workshop and as a part of this team he goes out to different parts of the city and creates these new and awesome different playgrounds some types like benches and it's these types of things that got him out his community and other students as well to really interact with their community and I know that as an SLA student as a teenager in Philadelphia I come from very diverse city and I know I'm not the only one that wants to make this type of change as a teenager and I know the teenagers want to find their mark I'm sure many of you know how hard your teenage years were because they were and I know because I'm a teenager and the one thing we want to know as one of the things we want to know is that we're making some sort of change and that we're making our mark into this world and we want to be prepared to make our mark in this world and if you if you realize what know me and I and and when have all done we've done all these magnificent projects in our community and none of it involved in number two pencil or scantron all it took was a little bit of belief and a little bit of time and that's and that's one of the two of the biggest things that I have gotten from SLA that I truly appreciate and I know that I want to make this a bigger thing so as a Philadelphia youth commissioner I have a moving in a direction where I'm creating a resolution and a resolution that will help mandate these types of internships and an opportunity for high schools across the city to have the opportunity to go into places like city it to city banks and hospitals and cupcake shops and what have you something that will prepare them for the real world because on my own I can't change a whole curriculum so what I'm going to do is then work with my resources and I'm going to help create this real-world application and I want other peers across the city to have the same opportunity as I have at SLA and is that to apply what you learn in school to the outside world because that is what grows a citizen and that is what's going to prepare us to be the future leaders of tomorrow and I like this quote by director Steve McQueen and it's school was painful for him because so many beautiful people didn't achieve what they could achieve because no one believed in them and I want this I want this my entire talk to have some sort of call to action and so as a city I'd like to call this to action and as adults in this room as many community leaders are you as you all are and to anybody watching as well is that I would love for adults and communities to really believe in this generation in Philadelphia right now because it's a matter of our belief that we know that we can accomplish something and it's that that I would love for people to set high expectations for teenagers and sit and set high standards but to help us along the way because their teenage years of the years we're going to fail and the years we're going to make mistakes but we need a mentor beside us and many times as I've said today is that many politicians and policy makers and any adult has said we want our students to be the future leaders of tomorrow how about making them the present leaders the leaders of today and the only way you're going to do that is by investing into the present and if you are to invest into the present I rest assure you the future will take care of itself thank you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 425,916

Rating: 4.9410605 out of 5

Keywords: United States, tedx, ted talks, Public Policy, TEDxTalks, tedx talk, English, ted, ted x, tedx talks, ted talk, Education

Id: woVtj8GH678

Length: 17min 41sec (1061 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 13 2014