Cultivating rich relationships.
The purpose of assessment is for a teacher to communicate to a pupil
(1) what they have mastered,
(2) what they have not yet mastered,
(3) and the most prudent path connecting the two.
The Liberal Arts
Assessment is communication. Communication is the means of cultivating community. Recovering the lost art of assessment as communication requires clarity about what we do as educators, who we serve, and how best to serve them.
What are we doing?
Education in the liberal arts is about freedom. Cultivating wisdom and virtue, educators guide pupils in the formation of their intellects and wills. The purpose of education can be summarized thus: the freeing of our minds through the discipline of wonder by nourishing our intellects with truth, our wills with goodness, our passions with beauty, and our whole being with unity.
Who are we serving?
We are serving fallen, but redeemed, human beings. The term pupil is better for who we serve than student as education is a formation of sight. Pupils need assessment that serves both their intellectual and moral formation (cultivating both intellect and will). The intellect and will were disordered by the fall. Education is at the service of that grace that restores the order of the intellect and will.
How best to serve pupils?
As communication, assessment primarily directs the pupil as an apprentice under the guidance of the teacher as master. One of the many problems with conventional assessment is that it distorts the master-apprentice relationship with a despotic relationship where teachers are the gatekeepers of the grades. It is a consumerist approach that may fit the spirit of the world but is a far cry from what best serves the whole good of the pupil. An encounter with Christ, the eternal Logos, is what best serves the whole good of the pupil. A lofty ideal, but incarnational! The example of Christ as educator in the Gospels and the liberal arts tradition baptized by His Church serve as our model for how to recover the lost art of assessment, an art that allows us to bless our pupils by serving as the foundation for a relationship.
kyle E. Albarado 