Finals week began today, and the whole school is in full stress mode. My school is not an easy one to attend at this time of year, because of the intensity with which it goes about studying. If you are not cramming for exams, you are simply not doing something right.
I have one teacher, though, who has been particularly outspoken about the finals frenzy. This teacher teaches on of my favorite classes, and has spent the entire year trying to encourage us to think beyond the walls of the classroom, to think about what we are learning on a more significant and worldly level. I think the class has achieved a greater level of success because of this encouragement, and I believe we have all gotten a little bit more from the class because of it.
During the week when most other teachers are attempting to fill our heads with the information that we will need to get an A on the final, my teacher was working on making sure that we knew how to use the material beyond that. The class he teaches does not cater well to a classic style of exam, so a final is a difficult thing to study for. He was quite critical of the exam, as a matter of fact, and even mentioned to us how stupid it is that we even have to take an exam, because he believes that it is better to have an assessment that reflects our actual growth in the class, something that the current exam fails to do.
I think my teacher is right on in this. Exams focus too much on letter grades: what do I need for an A-, what do I need to maintain my B average. The focus needs to start being more on how much we learned and how we can take that into the real world and benefit our community. How can we do that with simply an A on a report card?
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