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2.2
Assessment in the Past
Within the bounds of this relatively short chapter, it is impossible to
provide anything close to a detailed analysis of how the outcomes of
mathematics education were assessed in the past. We can simply note
that the history of assessment in Russia — particularly the history
of exams in mathematics — includes many dramatic transformations
(Karp, 2007a).
Literature and journalism have preserved for us numerous images
of czarist era teachers, who “pounce on everything in sight” when
they administered exams (Averchenko, 1990). Indeed, it was officially
expected that assessment would be conducted in an extremely strict
and impartial fashion. The rules for testing students of gymnasia and
pregymnasia published by the Ministry of Public Education (1891),
for example, stipulated that “students taking exams are not allowed
to use aids of any kind, including dictionaries, with the exception of
tables of logarithms when taking exams in mathematics” (par. 13b).
Furthermore, it was explained that “oral exams are conducted before
a commission consisting of the director or inspector, or the class
preceptor and two teachers” (Sbornik, 1895, par. 33). During written
exams, every student had to sit at a separate desk and remain under the
constant supervision of specially appointed overseers. Students with
unsatisfactory grades in mathematics (or in Russian language, Latin,
and Greek) were not admitted to the exams, and those who had failed
an exam, which happened not infrequently, had to take it again in the
fall. Students who failed to pass the exam a second time would often be
held back for another year. There were even rare cases of students being
held back for three years (although, generally speaking, usually in such
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cases students would simply get expelled from school). The following
excerpt from the Complete Collection of Documents of the Russian
Empire is representative of the centralized system of governance that
had taken shape in the country:
August 17 [1881]. Report by the Acting Vice-Minister of Public
Education,…, most humbly submitted [to the czar]. Concerning the
decision to hold back second graders Zilberstein and Monchinsky of
the Chenstokhovsky Pregymnasium for a third year in the same grade.
The Superintendent of the Warsaw school district has submitted
for review to the Ministry of Public Education a petition from the
Inspector of the Chenstokhovsky Pregymnasium concerning holding
back Henrich Zilberstein and Anton Monchinsky, second graders at
the Pregymnasium, for a third year in the same grade. In accordance
with §34 of the Statute Concerning Gymnasia and Pregymnasia,
students may remain no more than two years in the same grade. In
view of the fact that the aforementioned students, distinguished by
their exemplary conduct and unflagging diligence, were unable to
pass to the next-highest grade due to frequent illnesses, I take upon
myself the responsibility of most humbly requesting Your Imperial
Majesty’s most gracious consent to hold back Pregymnasium students
Zilberstein and Monchinsky in the same grade for a third year. (PSR,
1893, #360a)
The same document also contains the following note: “The original
indicates that it was ‘ratified by the Supreme Authority.’ The Sovereign,
however, has indicated that in the future such decisions may also be
made independently by the Superintendent of the school district.”
Meanwhile, a great deal of evidence has survived about widespread
cheating on exams and in the educational process in general (Karp,
2007a). Public opinion about such cheating, as far as can be judged, was
favorable, since the gymnasium’s insistence on high standards was seen
as an expression of the dictatorial tendencies of the czarist regime. It is
not surprising that after the Revolution of 1917, exams were abolished,
along with most other traditional forms of individual assessment. The
laboratory team method gained popularity, in which students worked
on assignments in teams; during the final class, the work of each team
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would be assessed as a whole, without taking into account the students’
individual contributions (Glebova, 2003).
During the 1930s, this system of assessment, based on projects and
on what today would be called a “portfolio,” was, along with other
innovations of the 1920s, declared a leftist deviation (Karp, 2010), and
the system in many respects reverted quite rapidly to its pre-Revolution
form, with a renewed emphasis on strictness accompanied by frequent
cheating and falsification. In addition, it became considerably more
centralized. Prior to 1917, it was impossible even to imagine that, for
example, the whole country from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean
would take the exact same exam in mathematics, composed in Moscow,
but precisely such a system became established by the mid-1940s.
At the same time, falsifications became more and more prevalent: in
Stalin’s time, almost 20% of the students received failing grades, while
during the Brezhnev years, this number had dropped to 1–2%. At a
certain point, the idea of instruction without formal grades, particularly
in elementary schools, became popular again, although the Pedagogical
Encyclopedic Dictionary (Glebova, 2003) characterizes these ideas as
being difficult to realize.
We repeat that it is impossible to undertake a detailed analysis of
the history of assessment in Russia here. Nonetheless, it is important
to recognize that traditions that have existed to this day took shape
over decades, and that mathematics educators, influenced by these
developments, formed specific beliefs about assessment and its role —
beliefs that were by no means identical in all respects to the views of
educators in other countries.
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