This is Only a Test
Not too long ago, I was a high school student caught up in a world where the grades at the top of exams and essays were life-or-death affairs. My future - nay, Western Civilization's survival - rested on so many accumulated red numbers in my teacher's ledger. If the numbers stayed high, say, above 80, the Earth would continue to spin on its axis without incident. But if they dropped below that standard, even by a few points, there would be much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Some unimaginable catastrophe awaited marks south of 60. Luckily for the free world, I only occasionally produced such horrifying numbers.
Because I was just precocious and cocksure enough when I entered college, I stopped taking grades seriously. Not once did I check out my grades during my first two years. In the main, this was because I was certain they were sufficient, if not excellent, and felt knowing them precisely would accomplish little. A secondary reasoning, though the one I mooted the most, was that I was at college to learn, which I felt I was doing just fine and through a process which seemed entirely independent of grading. What was the opinion of my professors whence compared to my own knowledge of the material they impressed upon me?
Though I took a greater interest in my GPA during the secnd half of my college career, my personal emphasis on learning also grew and matured. By graduation, I could say with a straight face and no deception that the authors I was reading and ideas I toyed with meant far more to me than the grades my professors turned in, even if I did kind of like those nice impersonal letters from the dean and university president.
I am ever more thankful for this attitude now, as a high shcool teacher, than I ever was as a student - even though I'm now on the other side of the exams in my classes. There is an argument - and a compelling one - that testing kids is nothing more than fear-mongering and of dubious merit as both a learning tool and assessment method. If this idea sounds wishy-washy or bleeding heart, believe me, I admit that I am susceptible to those feelings. But I've also seen my share of students wrestle in digesting their grades on my exams to know something of the unmerited weight they give the mark at the top of the page.
To wit, there I was with Maram, one of my 9th graders, this afternoon. Maram is a fine student. She's not always at the head of the class, but she's probably safely somewhere in the top quarter or third. In the interest of full disclosure, she's also a sweetheart, too. For reasons indeterminate and unimportant, Maram turned in a pretty terrible English exam yesterday, one that almost hurt me to grade. This morning, of course, she asked eagerly after her mark, confident that her hard work and good study habits paid off. Knowing that the number alone would pretty well crush her and being quite reluctant to do so, I begged Maram off until the end of the day, asking her to stay a little while after school to look over the exam together.
Warts and all, exams should be learning tools, and it really is the process that I'm interested in. I care more that the exam prompts students to spend some quality time with the material and gives them at least a little practice with applying what they know. The hope is that along they way they actually internalize some of the information. Even after the exam is done, coming to grips with errors can be every bit as educational - assuming the student hasn't completely lost all composure at the sight of their score. On a hunch that Maram had such a reaction in her, I held out her exam for an hour, showing the score only after we had talked our way through each and every exercise on a fresh paper.
I don't know that she learned anything from our hour's review, but I do know that the revelation of her score cut Maram to the quick. She was in tears, near-hyperventilating, and generally disappointed. Moved by great compassion, and not a little guilt, I took her aside and tried to impress upon her my own homegrown philosophy that learning trumps grades. Without the benefit of my years of experience, I don't know that Maram internalized all the nuances of my thinking, but I think ti at least settled her nerves. At least, I hope it did. She's just too good a kid to lose to a little red ink.