The Price of Assessment: Ender’s Game as an Educational Tool in the EFL Classroom

Abstract: As Sweden has moved towards an assessment-driven education system, an increase in studies reporting the decline of students’ well-being has also followed. The studies indicate a strong correlation between said decline and the potential negative effects of assessment such as stress and emotional distress. Defining well-being as a balance between the students’ abilities and their aims, this essay investigates how and why Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (1991) can be used as a tool for identifying the possible impact of assessment on this   balance while simultaneously working towards both abstract and concrete goals of current curricula and the Education Act. Foucauldian theory is utilized as a way of identifying and dismantling structures of assessment with key factors such as surveillance, testing and categorization constituting the main foci in the analysis of Ender’s Game. The extremes of assessment at Card’s Battle School provide an excellent opportunity for students to gain awareness of their own situation at a safe distance while identifying potential similarities in the Swedish Education System and their effects on well-being.