Gen Z: The over-tested generation

An addition to Greg Lukianoff's "Catching up with 'Coddling'" series

Photo by RODNAE Productions from Pexels

Note: Greg Lukianoff, the co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind, has been publishing blog articles documenting relevant developments since the publication of the book. In this article, I propose an area of exploration that the book did not delve into deeply but should have.

The 20th anniversary of the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act is approaching. The legislation, for the first time, gave the federal government the authority to mandate standardized testing, organized by each state, to hold schools accountable for particular standards of performance. This mandate was tied to funding. The federal government has no real authority over schools, so they default to the carrot and stick method: If you do as we say, you will receive federal funding. If you don't, you risk losing funding. I have never been a fan of the legislation. I can concede that it led to changes in the school system that were needed—assessment and accountability certainly are not bad things—but overall, I see it as a failure. Not just because it didn't live up to its name, but because it changed schooling in ways that are not beneficial to children.

In The Coddling of the American Mind, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt examine K-12 schools to understand why young adults of Generation Z (iGen) are showing up on college campuses with a desire to be protected from speech. They noticed that these students, born starting in 1995, want to be emotionally safe, not just physically safe. The decline of free play in childhood is one cause they point to for the change in attitude regarding safety and why Gen Z is less competent when it comes to interacting with a diverse range of people and ideas on college campuses.

During free play, no adult is choosing the activities or directing how the children should play. This type of play is beneficial because it provides children the opportunity to learn how to negotiate rules with their peers and solve problems without adult intervention. I have witnessed the benefits of free play in action several times in my years as a teacher, but one instance stands out: 

I worked at a pre-school, which included a kindergarten, while I was in college. The school took a laissez-faire approach to education. There were some structured activities, such as morning circle, but most learning occurred through play. One afternoon, a child who had what then would have been called Asperger syndrome approached the kindergarten teacher during outdoor playtime to tell her that he was having a disagreement with two other children. By coming to tell her this, he was violating a school norm: Unless a disagreement led to physical acts of violence, children were to settle their own disputes. As such, the teacher told him that he needed to speak with the two children and settle this dispute himself. He stomped his feet in frustration all the way back to where the other two children were playing. As he spoke with his peers, you could tell that he was frustrated but tried to remain calm as he told them what he was upset about and what he wanted. They eventually resumed play, with smiles on their faces. The mother of the child with Asperger loved the school because her child's social skills improved immensely while attending the school, likely because of this exact approach. 

Lukianoff and Haidt point out that free play, where these social skills are homed, has declined in schools as a result of NCLB and its testing mandate—they also describe the decline of free play outside of school hours. Teachers, and occasionally entire schools, forego recess to allow more time for test preparation. Some teachers may even ask that students be excused from P.E. to work on skills that will be tested. Often, the idea is that school is for learning not for play. School administrators that espouse this view need to be convinced that recess correlates, better yet, causes, increased academic achievement (i.e., test scores) for it to be a regular part of the school day.

I agree that a lack of free play is one explanation for why students are not prepared for encountering opposing views on college campus, but when it comes to the increased emphasis on standardized testing, it's only part of the story. 

A standardized approach to learning encourages conformity—there is always a correct answer, and you must know what that is to do well on assessments. To be sure, the fact that grades are used to demonstrate ability has also led to conformity—if you follow directions and do what the teacher expects of you, you will get a good grade. But many school districts require pre-tests leading up to the state-mandated tests. Children may sit for four standardized tests in the course of a school year, from 3rd to 8th grade. In high school, end-of-course exams are used, along with a graduation exam. This creates an environment in which students become accustomed to preparing for and taking tests. They learn how to digest then regurgitate information. This takes away from learning how to dialogue with peers and solve problems.

Standardized tests also crowd out the subject areas that typically provide students with opportunities to practice engaging in perspective-taking and the type of discourse expected in college classrooms, such as civics. Social studies is not a tested subject area, and there are no Common Core State Standards for the subject, so it often gets scrapped (in grammar schools) or the time spent on the subject is reduced compared to math and English language arts. 

Recently, there have been efforts to do away with standardized testing because the tests are considered racist. This is not my argument. Nor am I against formally assessing learning. Assessments provide teachers, students, and parents with useful information about progress in learning concepts and skills. But an assessment system that becomes the sole outcome of focus for the entire school year, year after year, takes away opportunities for students to learn how to communicate with peers without adult interventions, requires conformity, and marginalizes open inquiry in favor of getting the right answer. This does not prepare young people for engaging with a diverse range of ideas and viewpoints on college campuses or beyond.