I have exams. They drive me crazy. You know recently I attended a conference where one of the topics of discussion was "Are examinations a violation of our children's rights?" I was very interested in that of course. I was also very surprised by the audience at the conference. There were a number of students as well as educators there, and it was very interesting to note that, a lot of the students did not seem to think that exams violated our rights. I suppose it's a sign of maturity that these students recognise examinations as a necessary evil. Are examinations a violation of our rights? I suppose there isn't an easy answer to that. I suppose there has to be some way of evaluating our progress in our education. If there weren't any examinations, how would we know if the student has learned anything. I mean putting a child in a level of education he or she isn't prepared for is more cruel than anything an exam can cause. However, as with many other things, we have taken a good idea like an exam and become very stupid about it. Come on, what is the point of examining kindergarten children for crying out loud!
I think the answer lies in our approach to exams. Exams aren't evil but neither are they the life and death ordeal many students seem to think they are. Examinations are only a method of evaluation. I think the emphasis we place on exams are wrong. I can't think of an answer, especially now that I am quite wrung out from my examinations preparations but I feel that we place too much pressure on our children to get good grades. It doesn't matter that the good grades don't seem to correlate to a better life, parents seem to think that if you do well in exams your life will magically fall in place. The truth is rather more complicated than that. The top students in school were always the ones who no one knew. No one knew them because they were shut away in their rooms, studying, or running from one tuition to another. These kids spend their formative years shut away in the dark forgetting any social skills they may have picked up. They grow up into brilliant but dysfunctional adults. this is always true of course, but everyone agrees that genius is just the flip side of the coin from insanity. It's a mark of our time that we tolerate insanity more readily, we welcome it in fact. Still I think pressuring the children to excel in their studies at the expense of living is just plain mean. Hopefully starting now, we will remember that examinations are just a matter of evaluation. Hopefully with this realisation, less children will feel pressured to kill themselves over bad results.
Just Me.