pause and reflect on the experiences we are having holistically. We may need to explore our own responses to situations as well as those of our students. We may need to move beyond intellectual needs and explore social contexts, physical demands, or emotional safety. Multiple factors can impact any experience and anticipating needs can be challenging. It is also helpful to remember that, “being a learner, the holistic teacher has to discover new knowledge, and the primary mode of discovering knowledge is to undertake research” (Patel, 2003, p. 273). Giving ourselves the time and space to be reflective and responsive is one way of ensuring the edges can become soft once again.
When we explore aligning our assessment choices with the needs of the whole person, it is critical to remember that the edges must remain soft (and the needs of the whole person must be met) for both learners and their teachers to create and nurture holistic education experiences. The notion of whole adults educating whole students opens up discussions about how the story of learning is experienced in schools. What does it mean to educate and nurture? Are we responsible for educating all parts of a person? While there are many important questions about holistic learning to consider, this text will focus more narrowly on assessment practices that honor the whole person. This is not an attempt to ignore or simplify the complexity of education. Holistic education is complex in and of itself, and one book can’t cover the concept’s entirety. However, considering the importance of the whole person impacts our assessment decisions and is crucial to softening the edges.
Assessing the Whole Person
Introducing the concept of the whole person into an examination of assessment invites a conversation about how our instructional and assessment decisions impact the development of a human in multiple realms—socially, emotionally, intellectually, and physically. When we invite students into an assessment experience, are they intellectually active or passively compliant? Are we inviting questions and self-exploration, or are we telling our learners how to think and feel? Are we exploring our next steps with curiosity and critical thinking, or are we defining each move and narrowing the focus in a manner that removes a strong purpose? Are learners part of the assessment and learning conversation, or are they standing outside it? Is the story theirs to create, or are they simply consuming our story? Winifred Wing Han Lamb (2001) reminds us, “We should view children as partners in learning, as adequate people rather than as inadequate adults” (p. 210). When assessing, there are a number of foundational philosophies we must keep in mind.
The following list articulates the philosophical beliefs that underlie the connections between assessment and the whole person. Each of these beliefs provides a lens through which to develop and support practices to soften the edges of assessment.
• Students are not incomplete. They are complete and changing, just like adults.
• All students can learn, and all adults can learn.
• We show students and adults respect by believing in them and challenging them.
• We show respect for students when we help them build independence and believe they can be independent.
• Clarity builds confidence, and confidence in learners can be nurtured through choices adults make.
• Students are different from each other, and this difference is a gift, not a complication.
• Learning occurs within tension, risk taking, and mistake making, but in a safe environment.
• Assessment can support hope, efficacy, optimism, and joy.
Through our assessment practices, we want to promote integrated approaches, not fragmented focuses. Our exploration of assessment and the whole person is about breadth and balance (McLaughlin, 1996). Softening the edges involves increasing our belief in students by allowing our assessment practices to reflect the best-of-the-best knowledge, rich understanding, and strong connection making.
Identifying the Benefits of Assessing the Whole Person
When we make the choice to soften the edges of assessment for our students and attend to their wholeness, we produce learners who are intellectually active while also developing their inclination to be empathic, kind, caring, and fair. We instill a desire to be creative and curious while also ensuring the ability to be disciplined, self-directed, and goal oriented. We support the development of critical thinkers who are confident and free to express their needs and hopes. We nurture students who clearly feel cared for and valued for precisely who they are (Commission on the Whole Child, 2007).
Creating environments and experiences that foster these learner characteristics is part of the broader purpose of our work in schools. When we use these outcomes as a filter for the choices we make in our assessment practices, we can begin to see how our choices may nurture or contradict these characteristics in students. The soft edge of assessment attends to and supports the development of the whole student.
Learning is a complex dance between environments, experiences, and the social, intellectual, and emotional needs and conditions of human beings. Reflecting on how our instructional decisions impact all parts of a person increases the likelihood of environments that support growth, risk taking, safety, love, and belonging, all of which indicate a softened edge.
Understanding Assessment
If we are going to soften the edges of our assessment practices to honor the whole person, we must ensure we clearly understand the fundamentals of what assessment is, as well as why, when, who, and what we are assessing, and how best to capture all that it entails accurately, reliably, and in a way that is accessible for everyone. Knowledge leads to efficacy for both teachers and learners, and efficacy indicates a soft edge. Spending time deepening our assessment knowledge is vital to supporting learning and bringing out the best in everyone.
What Is Assessment?
An assessment refers to a specific tool used to measure and document learning within a specific context in relation to a goal. Goals can include learning goals (I use this term throughout the book to generally represent terms such as standards or outcomes) or behavioral goals. The broader practice of engaging in assessment refers to the continual intention and act of capturing learning in the moment and making inferences about the degree of a learner’s understanding in relation to a goal over time.
A strong argument can be made that humans are constantly engaging in assessment. For example, we may think: I have to make it to work by 8:00 a.m. and it is now 7:30 a.m. I had better leave now or I won’t make it on time. And then later: Well, I was wrong. I needed forty-five minutes to get to work. Perhaps we engage in this mental conversation: Oh, here comes a puddle. I had better jump now or I will hit the water. Oops! Not enough distance on that jump! In fact, any time we clarify a goal, take action, and measure our efforts in relation to our goal, we are assessing. It is an incredibly natural process and a vital part of our decision making every day.
For assessment to be primarily embedded in the learning cycle, it must remain formative. Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam (1998) clarify the meaning: “[Formative assessment is] all those activities undertaken by teachers, and/or by students, which provide information to be used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged” (pp. 7–8). Through daily learning experiences, we ask students to practice the individual skills and knowledge that build toward the learning goal so that, over time, students can synthesize those skills into deeper understanding.
Ideally, the impact of daily formative assessment is to increase the chances that decisions and actions meet goals. The consequences for not achieving goals on our first attempt are simply to learn, adjust, and try again. This cycle of goal setting, action, and reflection is naturally organic
