"Your marks are lying"
Parents, teachers, family, friends, and education ministers of states, in fact, society itself have become judges in this competition that resembles a beauty contest at times. The winner takes all and the loser stands small. The child is made to believe that the more the marks, the more the intelligence quotient. The examination results are all about comparison, about numbers that peg one student higher or lower than the other. In the process, they end up changing the self-expectations of many. One of the leading education thinkers, Elliot Eisner, once said, “not everything important is measurable and not everything measurable is important”.
The problem with our exams is that they are not improving the culture of education but they are becoming synonymous with education itself. the pendulum swings from academic posturing to self-criticism of oneself and depression. Parents must understand that intelligence assumes multiple forms and each child has natural strengths and weaknesses. We have to find ways to nurture their individuality. Many of us wrongly assume that the examination results provide a neutral assessment of a child’s intellectual ability. A low score does not indicate a lack of knowledge about a subject. For instance, a student who is an excellent writer might struggle to pick the right answer in a multiple choice test. Similarly, it is easy to assume that students who score high in maths are good at processing information, reasoning, and abstraction. But that’s not always the case. It is often seen that there is no correlation between memorizing, attention span, and the speed of processing information. Most times, high test scores simply mean excellence at rote memorization and solving multiple choice questions. An examination result should, therefore, be only seen as an additional data point on student learning; it should not occasion value judgments.
We have become more focused on competing against each other rather than providing children with what they need. Our socialization makes us applaud only certain types of achievement, We don’t even look for other things our children may be good at. But when a system narrowly defines successes, it leaves out many youngsters. How can a handful of educationists who frame test papers know what will be truly useful to students in a fast-changing world? Can we, at least, pause and reflect on the damage such a system does to our children?
Parents tend to worry about the rising costs of coaching during and after school, the rising costs of college fees, whether their children will find a livelihood, and most of all how will they live up to their own and societal expectations. They often end up feeling helpless, with the child becoming the victim of their frustrations. More than eight out of 10 teenagers experience moderate to extensive pressure during the final school/college year – headaches, loss of sleep, anger, irritability, and anxiety about academic performance. Many times, these results arrive after delays, often when students have moved on to another class. We need more expansive evaluation criteria for a student’s performance. As the American systems scientist Peter Senge points out, “We need assessments that are designed for learning not used for blaming, ranking and certifying. The 21st-century parent, educator, and students themselves need to develop a growth mindset, a deep shift in attitudes about testing and learning”. The world of work is changing rapidly. Employers say they need young adults who can take on new tasks and challenges, be innovative and collaborative and come up with ideas for new products and processes. Market players often complain that a large number of people seeking jobs with conventional academic qualifications are not good team players or they are not creative enough. But why blame these young aspirants? They have spent years learning that the system encourages competition and rewards conformity and compliance.
The World Economic Forum has published a report on the key skills that workers worldwide will need - creativity, flexibility, collaboration, teamwork, and emotional intelligence. The forum has recognized that these skills have to be cultivated in education. The emphasis on academic tests has also squeezed out vocational courses, which used to be a valuable route to employment for many young people whose interests and capacities are now neglected in schools. The British educator Ken Robinson, once wrote, “One of the perils of standardized education is the idea that one size fits all and that life is linear. The truth is that there are many routes to fulfillment. The lives of most people have not followed a standard course. "It’s important at school not to limit your children’s future by assuming that the sort of education that you had will inevitably be right for them”. To nurture and challenge students’ intellect and imaginative capacities, we need to break out of minimalistic expectations and not hide in recycled worksheets and standardized tests as pedagogical tools. Progress in learning should be related to developing sensitivities. We need to encourage students to engage and explore.
