“We may not be able to prepare the future for our children, but we can at least prepare our children for the future.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt

Testing For Intelligence

Areas that I feel should be measured when considering the whole child are Social/Emotion and Language Development, Cognitive and Gross Motor Skills as well as the physical development of the child.  I feel that all these areas are important to a child's development when considering the whole child, however I don't feel that you can get a full picture of the whole child by standardized testing alone.  I feel this way because some children test exceptionally well and some don't test well as all.  I do believe that there are good and bad test takers, and for those who are not good test takers there should be some other form of assessment to see if the child is developing at his/her full potential.  I feel this could be done by observations by the parents, educators and other professionals who are skilled in working with children.  I think that's it's important to assess children, I just don't believe or agree that all children should be tested the same way because they don't learn the same; what works for one doesn't mean that it's going to work for all. 

In China there are typically two ways to assess children and they are the classroom and external assessments.  The classroom assessment is based on classroom performance, teacher and parent observations, assessments from peers, quizzes and test, performance based assessments and portfolios.  The Chinese believe that many assessments taken over a period of time will give a more comprehensive picture of what a child is capable of.  The other form of assessment measures the child's performance as well as how effective the program is, is what they call the external assessments.  These are done through numerous standardized test. 

I feel that if children are being assessed everything should be looked at when considering the whole child.  I've never been a fan of testing, not being a fan doesn't mean that I didn't know the material, it just means I don't test well.  Test anxiety is real and I do believe that when you have a person who suffers from test anxiety, you'll have a person who won't do well on that test.

Consequences of Stress on Childrens Development

I count it as a blessing that I've never experienced many stressors as a child.  I don't know if my parents hid a lot of things from me to make me think that I was living the good life, however, I do know that I was very blessed growing up and didn't even realize it.

Japan

After years of stagnation and widening income disparities, this once proudly egalitarian nation is belated waking up to the fact that it has a large and growing number of poor people (Fackler, 2010).  In 2007 at least 20 million Japanese people lived in poverty.  Over half of the impoverished are single mothers but because of their culture and them being afraid that they would be labeled most impoverished families try to keep up with the appearance of middle class Japanese families.  1 in 7 children in Japan is living in poverty and the government supplies aid to those children but by doing this education funds cost have to be cut.  Which starts a cycle of children being under-education which impacts all areas of development and it gives them a lifetime of low-wage work which could be a domino effect in families which will keep them in poverty their entire lives.  The poverty that families, including single families are subject to isolates them from the public view and even family members.  Children don't receive the education that they receives which affects their development, they stay out of public view which can also affect their development especially their social development. 

Reference

The New York Times-Asia Pacific-Japan Tries to Face Up to Growing Poverty Problem (Fackler, 2010)
     http://www.nytimes.com