It has been close to a month since our deliberation, “Setting the Standard for Standardized Testing”, and I must say, I am still a bit disappointed about how the discussion turned out. Though I know our group delegated work properly in preparation and we felt united towards a common goal during the lead-up, I felt like our execution was quite lackluster and we could have had a better outcome than what we had. However, not all was lost. I do think there are some positives that came out of our discussion and certainly some lessons to be learned about how to successfully deliberate in the future. Among our discussions within each approach, one common theme emerged, and that was the importance of student choice. Ensuring equity in the application process was definitely a shared opinion of participants, and finding a way to create that opportunity for all students was a vital component in the discussions concerning how the SAT and standardized testing could be improved in the future.
The other deliberation that I attended as a participant was called, “To Stan or Not to Stan: How to Make Justice Possible for Cults of Personality”. It took place at Fraser Commons and had a large number of participants arrive, resulting in a unique way of deliberating. Rather than discussing the approaches as a large group, we were divided among tables to talk about each approach with a smaller group of 4-8 other students. Not only did it feel more intimate and honest, but also more productive as participants were eager to speak up and contribute to the conversation on a smaller scale. This deliberation was much more successful at “adequately distributing speaking opportunities”, as opposed to ours which felt hindered by the location, moderation, and acoustics of the room. Moderators from the “To Stan or Not to Stan” deliberation rotated to each small group every 20 minutes, and ultimately, by the end of the discussion, their Team Summary showed how each group was able to form a different opinion and take on the issue independently. It was a very unique way to go about the deliberation and had we had more participants at our own event, I think it would have been an effective way of moderating and facilitating deeper conversations.
Many of Gastil’s Deliberative Criteria were either attempted or present in our deliberation and the other one that I attended. One of the things that I felt we did with the utmost care was “respect other participants”. Students politely allowed others to speak, and I felt our moderators were able to smoothly rotate the conversation to different participants within each approach. No student was interrupted or made fun of as a result of their beliefs or contribution to the subject. I felt this was also reflected in the “To Stan or Not to Stan Deliberation”, perhaps to an even greater extent due to the smaller conversation groups. One of the elements our deliberation sought to highlight was the importance of “considering other ideas and experiences”. Each and every person that held personal stakes in the SAT conversation brought a different idea to the table, which helped widen our discussion around equity and equality throughout the college application process. In the deliberation I attended, many people had limited experience with their own emotions and feelings towards stan and cancel culture, and sometimes it felt as if we were discussing occurrences we were only aware of because of the media. Though I feel like we were able to dive into a variety of opinions in both, those experiences felt much more intimate and personal in the standardized testing conversation.
From the very beginning, I began to recognize the “key values” our deliberation was going to highlight, and those were of fairness and equity. Almost every negative aspect of the SAT is a result of inequitable evaluation and a poor reflection of a person’s capabilities. Therefore, upon reflection after the deliberation, the key takeaways were all in a similar realm of idea, regardless of the approach. Finding the fairest and equitable solution is of the utmost importance when tackling the issues with the SAT. Additionally, in both deliberations, I felt that both groups were able to sufficiently “create a solid information base” at the beginning for background information. While ours mostly consisted of providing statistics concerning the issue and numbers that represent inequities across state and regional lines, the other deliberation had to focus more on anecdotes and stories from the media to set the scene for many participants who were less familiar with the topic. It was interesting to see how different issues require different foundations for conversation; one being much more technical information and the other being much more informal and anecdotal!
I believe the most effective, yet also difficult, aspect of our deliberation was introducing and then weighing the pros and cons of the issue. The participants were very eager to discuss the cons immediately, despite the way in which the introductory questions were framed to talk about the benefits of a certain approach. However, I think in trying to moderate towards discussing the pros, the group as a whole was able to see the issue from a newer perspective and understand that potentially, some form of standardized testing is necessary, despite their original opinions. Being able to weigh the pros and cons was an essential step in coming together as a group and ultimately changing the opinions of many participants by the end of the deliberation.
Overall, I was not expecting the outcome that we came to in our deliberation. Essentially, many participants agreed that SATs were actually a necessary evil, and that it is difficult to avoid them completely. I wish we had had more time to delve into potential solution paths when we came to this realization. However, I still learned a lot from the experience and now know what is needed to have a successful deliberation in the future.
I can agree that perhaps our deliberation “Setting the Standard for Standardized Testing”, needed slightly more work. Although it did have some flaws and needed some work, we were still able to establish some sort of ongoing conversation. I do agree though that the outcome to the deliberation was slightly shocking since we accomplished the opposite. I remember myself being one of the people to be shocked because it changed my own opinion on the issue. I went from disliking it and wanting it change, to simply understanding why it existed.
It sounds like you found the topic for the standardized testing deliberation to be more personal and relatable to a broader proportion of the participants’ personal experiences, but that you found the format of the “To Stan” deliberation (with small groups split up) to foster a more personal and honest discussion. It’s interesting how these two aspects can affect the deliberation and how people’s comfort level with sharing their views and experiences. I also find it really interesting how each group navigated the differences in finding evidence for the topic, since the issues of SATs and cults of personality have such inherently different bodies of evidence and data, and it’s great that both groups were able to work around that to come up with a solid information base for the deliberation.
I am sorry that the deliberation did not go over as smoothly as you would have liked. But I am glad that it was a learning experience. That is why we are all here, anyway. I also attended a deliberation where the participants were split into small groups. And I agree that participants were more willing to talk in smaller groups. However, in my group, one girl was so comfortable speaking to us that she talked the entire time! She made it difficult for the rest of us to speak at all. Also, I do see how this format might be hard for an instructor to grade. The professor cannot be at all groups at once. I can totally see how the “Stan” topic might be an issue, as we all only really know about it because of the media. It is so interesting how this issue was presented “anecdotally,” but how else could it have been presented?
I also went to the standardized testing deliberation and I agree that it wasn’t perfect. There are definitely some aspects that could’ve been improved. I also went to a deliberation that split up the people into small groups and that did seem to work better.
I’m sorry that your deliberation didn’t work out exactly as you thought. If it makes you feel any better, it sounds to me like y’all did a good job! You have much to be proud of. I’m interested in the other deliberation you went to as, frankly, I’m not really sure what it was about. I understand all of the words in the title but I’m not quite sure what they mean together, if you catch my drift. Despite that I’m glad to hear that it went really well too! Great job!