As a student, I have always hated examinations and graded tests and quizzes. In general, I just hated to be graded for my learning. It was always a disappointment to see my grades no matter how much I have enjoyed the subject. I could have been performing to the best of my abilities and the 85 would still be burning through my report card as an underwhelming marker and measure for everything that I thought I enjoyed. And then there are also times when I would be “winging it” and couldn’t care less about what the subject matter had for me, and yet would receive a whopping 97. Sure, it makes me smile inwardly, but the sense of achievement feels quite lacking.
Because of this concentration of making everything very numerical in their best effort to standardize something as arbitrary as interest or creativity, students feel like robots who are tasked to continue education for the sake of, rather than enjoying the opportunity for learning. One great example of this phenomenon would be this video: (to insert video, still looking for the link)
Drills, practice sets, and activities in the classroom are always framed in a way that encourages good performance in summative assessments at the end of the year. A good score on the assessment would not only make the student proud, the teacher feel good, but also boost enrollment for the institution that hosts them both. But is this really all there is to an education?
I have enjoyed numerous activities in school as well, and ironically, the activities I enjoyed most were those that were not quantified and were not reflected in my overall grades. I’ve enjoyed participating in school fairs as we would as a class create booths and make games for children to play. Booths were a fundraising contest usually for a charity that is in most need for that year. We pride ourselves in being able to market our booths, earn money for a charity and win “best designed booth” or “most customers” and the like. The sense of achievement is alive and full in this endeavor.
However, as I am now part of the educating team, I’ve realized that assessments such as this would be a nightmare to quantify, and quantification is an unavoidable part of the education system. It also highly depends on the current subjects that have been established for years and years. Our power lies in the ability to make assessments fun and interesting, but our problem would be in translating this into final grades.
If only we could shift the understanding of an education from quantifiable standardization into solidifying learning and honing the practice of skill sets, maybe our report cards would become less of the meaningless jumble of numbers, but more like a narrative report similar to a psychological report that shows strengths and areas of improvement of each individual. If this is to be done, we might need a 1:10 teacher to student ratio—and you know, that might not be a bad thing at all!
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