Educational assessment: back to its origins - the process, not the moment

Abstract

This paper arises from a critical exercise about the role of evaluation in Colombia in the "new normality" after the education was affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, by the losses that families assumed and by the confrontations of public order in which the country was immersed. Faced with this reality to which teachers were not oblivious, this essay tries to reveal the original meaning of educational evaluation, highlighting that it transcends all types of measurement or classification and rather welcomes the other in its continuous improvement. For this, a hermeneutic exercise on evaluation is carried out from the perspective of an experience lived in the virtual classroom after the pandemic. Elements to be considered emerge from this, such as trust in the Other, reflection on classroom management itself, analysis of the context and the complete relinquishment of control. It is concluded that the educational evaluation requires an effort not to repeat the behaviors that repress and harm our students. Given the reality of the territories and the historical period, the evaluation must return to the learning process and not to the moment in which a result is demonstrated.