Testing

Throughout the years homeschooling my own children, I was often asked about tests and grades. Many people were shocked when I told them I did neither, and they would ask how I assessed if my children were learning. After explaining how we were discussing eveything daily and how the goal was to explore and process information rather than reiterate facts, pretty much everyone got quiet and left me alone.

One of my daughters in high school wanted to learn Russian, so she checked out books and CDs from the library, looked things up online, and taught herself to speak, read, and write it. To what level, I don’t know, because I don’t know Russian. There was no way I could assess her, but it all looked impressive! One day we spent most of the day visiting someone in the hospital, and after several hours, she started writing Russian on the white board. After a shift change, a nurse from Russia came in and asked who speaks Russian and read what was on the board. If I gave grades, I most definitely would have given her an A that day!

We have been blessed at Duara to have a father from Sudan who is willing to teach us Arabic. Today, a mom shared with me that her 8 year old son was at an appointment and upon noticing some Arabic on the wall, began to count in Arabic impressing the doctor from Syria. We aren’t teaching for a test, we are teaching for life!