Assessment: From the forum

Is CCE about maintaining more and more records??
Message from a teacher in the English STF

"Hello. Today I got 3rd day CCA training in BRC office Davanagere.Really coming days, our job is going to be a tough and mental stress. We will loose our teaching skills and going to stick on "records,records". There is no time to discus about students with staff. Only record maintaining. but we have to follow govt orders"

Response from Dr Kumaraswamy, DIET Mysore Original Message Subject: 	Re: Re: [EnglishSTF-444] Re: [ss-stf '4214'] Date: 	Sun, 17 Feb 2013 00:02:11 +0530 From: 	Kumara Swamy 

For a minute close your eyes and think if CCE is the thing we need or not. It is definitely needed. We have been talking about it for long. But never practised it the way it should have been practised.

If something is right and academically desirable we will first accept the idea and see how we can make its implementation meaningful. The whole business of CCE is about understanding a child holistically. Every teacher has a fairly good understanding of his/her students. However, this gut feeling can not be substantiated easily. So we need some kind of systematic data. Such data will not only support our conclusions about a child but also open up other dimensions of the child's personality.

Let us think of an example about ourselves. If there is a small checklist about personality traits and someone checks them for us,   we would surely be interested in knowing what that person's assessment about us is. Every such feedback would make us think about ourselves. That is why we stand before the mirror and take feedback on our own presentation, make necessary changes in our dressing and the like. The mirror does not mince any data. And it is so enjoyable looking at our own image in the mirror.

That is how our feedback to a student has to be. Every student is interested in getting feedback. Instead of going by gut feeling, if we have an objective and comprehensive assessment of the child, it adds to the worth of our feedback. It also tells the child/parent in which direction he/she has to move.

So to have a variety of data on a child's learning and other personality traits is surely desirable.

Now let us think of the burden part of it. I agree. It appears to be a burden. Until something becomes a habit it is a burden. For a person who never walks, walking half a km is a burden. But for morning walkers walking 5 kms daily is not a burden. After getting sugar complaints, walking even 10 kms won't be a burden!! Should we wait till we get sugar complaints?

I always think of the teacher who gave elaborate feedback on my daughter when she was at school. I had deep respect of that teacher. Whenever I talk to parents about their wards in detail, they feel so happy, reassured about their ward's learning. But to what extent can we substantiate our own comments/observations on the child? Such a support is a faith building mechanism.

If I just tell you that you are an excellent teacher or a bad teacher, how would you like it? If I support my comment with some evidences from your own teaching behavior, you would be benefited by that. See how cce forms allow teachers to reflect over a child's profile comprehensively. I find it so good.

Neverthelss, I agree with you. When a govt mechanism implements something, there will be a lot of record building or documentation. This becomes necessary to build a habit. May be after a year, we will know where to stop,  how to make things simpler without compromising on quality.

Pl don't hesitate to respond to this. You are free to disagree with me completely. But I urge you to first appreciate the basic idea of CCE and how important it is for a child. We can explore ways of making it more bearable. We need to talk about these things and move towards better clarity on CCE practices.

Dr Kumara Swamy H DIET, Mysore