Teach or Check? Daily Assessment in Icelandic Schools in Late 19th/Early 20th Century

Abstract

The immediate object of the present study is a document: the log book of a student at the Reykjavík Latin School (Lærði skólinn) 1885–1886. The booklet, containing inter alia numerical grades for the student´s performance every single time he was selected for individual questioning by a teacher, shows in detail the application of traditional “daily assessment” which tended to restrict the role of the teacher to evaluation rather than instruction. A part of the system was the ordering of students by performance, revised every month or two, visibly reflected in the seating arrangement in the classroom.

This style of daily assessment at the Latin School was controversial and subject to some variation, yet basically unaltered until abolished in 1904 as part of a radical overhaul of the school, thenceforth known as the Reykjavík Grammar School.

Said log book shows a somewhat flexible application of the system of daily assessment. A “monthly” summary is calculated only three times over the school year; “weekly” written compositions (or translations) are assessed about every other week; and the frequency of questioning varies between subjects, indicating that some classes – particularly in Icelandic language and literature – were devoted to instruction rather than evaluation.

The ordering of students by performance, reflected in the classroom seating arrangement, was common in other schools, both elementary and secondary, based either on daily assessment or periodical examinations. Alphabetical student registers are rarely seen until introduced in the Grammar School as of 1904. Even the Lutheran state church in its rite of confirmation reflected the practice of the schools, with the confirmands receiving their first communion in the pecking order established by their mastery of the catechism.

While rural Iceland retained a system of traditional home schooling, increasingly assisted by itinerant teachers, permanent elementary schools were established in the towns and larger villages. These mainly adopted a system of daily assessment, closely reflecting the practice of the Latin School. While teachers increasingly preferred class discussion to individual questioning, and thus found daily assessment at odds with their teaching style, conservative parents opposed its abolition. Not until 1908 did a newly established Education Authority take steps to replace it in a similar way as had been done in the grammar School in 1904.

Iceland was a Danish dependency, with Denmark as its “window on the world” and Danish practices as its natural models. It therefore comes as no surprise that the practice of daily assessment was much the same in Danish schools as in Icelandic ones, with the same protracted struggle to have it abolished.