Taking Exams

            I believe that exams are necessary for the intellectual growth of children. It is true that those who are successful professionally have also done well in their exams. Student’s minds are wholly tuned into artificial situations. The mind is exercised not to know about the subject. They know only technical details for immediate use without caring for the practical and permanent value of what they acquire. We should study with the idea to get more information not marks alone.

            Chavous and many other education professionals say Americans don’t know that their public schools, on the whole, just aren’t that good. Because without competition, parents don’t know what their kids might have had. And while many people say, “We need to spend more money on our schools,” there actually isn’t a link between spending and student achievement. Jay Greene, author of “Education Myths,” points out that “If money was the solution, the problem would already be solved.  We’ve doubled per pupil spending, adjusting for inflation, over the last 30 years, and yet schools aren’t better.”

Competition inspires people to do what we didn’t think we could do. There should always be a measuring stick to measure against. It is a common practice in human civilization to measure against a set objective or goal. Unless we measure against our goal, we do not know where we stand and how to plan to achieve the set objective. It is misinterpretation that exams demoralize students. The exams do not compare students against each other, people do. Exams are just to access where a student stands in a scale of 0-100. The marks/grade one gets does not just depend on the knowledge that he/she has, it also depends on the planning, and ability comprehend and organize one self.

Reference:

Jay Greene (2005). Education Myths, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc

Kevin P. Chavous, (2005). Serving Our Children – Charter Schools and the Reform of American Public Education, Capital Books