In a school where standardized testing is not required until the third grade, a Kindergarten is forced to wait to go to the bathroom and continue testing until she can no longer hold it in and soils herself. A University student is having a panic attack because they just did poorly on an essay, receiving only a mark of 88%. These kinds of stories are becoming more common amongst the current generations. It has now become that how much you have learned and your successfulness are derived by high test scores and grade point averages, instead of depth of educational conversations and the ability to utilize knowledge through critical thinking. We hear less of students who want to create, invent, build, write, or take new risks but more of students …show more content…
As a result new knowledge has weaker foundations to build on every year and the anxiety and stress to achieve good grades has replaced the importance of understanding. Emotional stress behaviours that begin in grades two to four such as crying, tantrums, wetting themselves, and vomiting eventually lead to rebellious responses in later years of schooling, by refusing to participate, skipping classes, and purposely doing poorly (Urdan and Edelstein, "Tests + Stress = Problems For Students - Brain Connection", 2000). This is concerning because it shows declining student motivation and it devalues learning that can be gained for the purpose of developing personal knowledge and skill (Urdan and Edelstein, "Tests + Stress = Problems For Students - Brain Connection", 2000). The social and societal implications amongst students to meet pre set standards of success on standardized testing are outweighing the need to have an in depth education and are creating overly anxious students with minimal knowledge and developed