Tune Syllabus Dekha? Kitna Saara hai? Kaise karenge? It is just about everything over there.
No more dance class this week. Done. You have exams next week, do you understand? You need to prepare for your exam.
Hello and welcome to Musings of a MasterNi, I am Minal Desai and here I share with you a medley of my unique experiences shaped by students teachers and life in general.
So, today we are going to talk about exams. Exams are all over the place, it’s Feb end March and I guess all of us are a part of it. The exams are here and the all-pervasive fear of exams is also here and this fear, unfortunately, starts from as young as 5 year 7-year-old students which is very strange and while there have been reams and reams written about it and there have been multiple discussions that have taken place about exams, somehow it seems to fall on deaf ears. Somehow the pressure of exams seems to keep on mounting with each year. Even with more educated parents coming into the frame, the fear of exams seems to increase manyfold.
But, we are a school and we face this every day and I really really feel that we need to understand that what the exams test is very narrow. It hardly looks at one particular aspect of a child. The child is so much more than just the exams and on that particular part, the child is riding on so many waves so much help. There are tuitions, test prep material and there is so much that is available even to primary years children to prepare them for the exam and the parents to prepare them for the exam are under extreme anxiety where they are constantly worrying whether they are doing right by their child.
We schools are also responsible for the name of not conducting exams. Also, I have seen schools mount pressure on the children in the name of the regular Friday test and Unit test. There is so much testing that is happening all around including Olympiads and all that it is difficult for the child to learn. And while the exams are here to stay unfortunately what is it that we want to focus on? What is more important? Is it the test score? Is it the Exam? Or Is it the Study Skill? Is it the ability to sit back and learn and study on your own? Is it self discipline or is it riding on your parent’s whims? How can we have children who only and only study when the parent is watching? Who only and only do things when that is expected out of them when there is an adult supervising them? And when we raise children like these what happens when they become adults, rather do they ever become adults?
Well, in my personal opinion, I guess you know which side I lean on. But, you know what there is a great number of parents who also understand this. There are champion mothers, there are fathers who are very sure that their children are more than the mark sheet and believe me my dear mothers and fathers and whoever is watching this. Your child is definitely defined by the mark sheet and you for sure are not defined by it. So isn’t it time for us to shift the focus from just the marks to transferring the ownership of studying to the child and saying that Hey listen, this is your job, you gotta do this! If you fail it will be okay by me but it’s just that you will have to face that. Are you okay with that?
So, if you have been that parent who has helped the child develop great study skills or develop the self-discipline to study irrespective of what marks the child has got. It doesn’t have anything to do with that. We live in a day and age where self-learning is so much more important than a piece of a degree or a mark sheet. If you have been that parent and you have inculcated certain skills in your child share it with us. We would love to hear from you because that helps us mitigate the overarching fear of exams, where there is this noise how they need to prepare for their children. Let us start with a different conversation and say, “Listen our children are capable of taking charge and let us given them that capacity.
Don’t forget to tell me how you deal with the exam fear for your children and don’t forget to subscribe to Musings Of A MasterNi on Youtube and Instagram.
