Freire on Standardized Testing
Based on Freire’s “The Banking Concept of Education,” he would not only be against an increase in standardized testing, but in that form of testing all together. Standardized testing in essence is the definition of the banking concept, which Freire defines as regarding "men as adaptable, manageable beings," people doing what they are told, storing factual information and adapting to what stored information if needed in the shaped society. Standardized tests make education a basic numbers game, if you score this high, you are smart, if not, you are not. How is that education? Who is making this standard of intellect? Freire talks of the students being “containers” to be “filled” by their teachers and how this narration leads to mechanical memorization. We do not learn and are not taught the how and why of what we are learning. Freire states "The capability of banking education to minimize or annul the students creative power and to stimulate their credulity serves the interests of the oppressors. Standardized tests are a multiple choice, only one answer test, this can't really gauge the intelligence of a person, they are not creative, they were likely put in place by some evil bureaucrat. Of course two plus two is four, and nouns will always be a person place or thing, but that is memorization that anyone can do given enough time. If they do not understand why math does what it does or what a writer is saying in their work, what use is the person to society. Freire would not support this, these types of tests would be the opposite of what he believes education should be.