Stop judging students’ abilities based on inaccurate methods

By Lucas Li

It is the day of your exam. You walk into the cold, clammy exam hall, sitting on this hard plastic chair with this tiny table to work on. You look around the room and see the stern faces of the invigilators juxtaposed with the worried faces of your peers, the atmosphere of the room so tense that it could almost be cut by a knife. All that preparation from the warm, safe environment of the MYP is completely thrown out the window as you are engulfed by stress. You struggle to think, your mind freezes up, your anxiety grows. You walk out of the exam hall knowing you failed. Then you think to yourself, is this really the point of 13 years of studying?

Photo by Pedro Figueras from Pexels

To answer this question, we must first examine the purpose of education. My younger cousin asked me one day: “What even is the point of going to school? Is it just for exams?” I quickly realised that this is a common misconception held by both parents and students, caused by the prevalence of exams. 

As a student who has undergone the MYP program since Year 7, I would say that the MYP is an ideal reflection of what education should look like, as it is geared towards developing the student’s understanding independently through different forms of coursework. To quote the IB website, “an IB education aims to transform students and schools as they learn, through dynamic cycles of inquiry, action and reflection.” 

However, this is a drastic difference compared to the typical examination method of memorising and rigorous studying, making the fact that exams are perverting the true purpose of education crystal clear. 

As a student growing up in Hong Kong, I am surrounded by the illogical belief that success can only be measured by your grades, and I am frequently told by my parents that if I failed my exams I would be “垃圾”(literally meaning ‘rubbish’ or, in plain English, ‘failure.’) Inevitably, my grades are frequently compared with
others in order to prove my worth. As a result of this, we are trained from birth by our parents and teachers to compete fiercely against each other in school and to train for exams with the intensity of training for a marathon in order to be the best of the best. But have our parents and teachers ever stopped to think about the effect this has on us students? 

By promoting a competitive attitude in schools, the next generation will enter society with the mindset of competing with everyone with the aggressiveness of a bull, instead of working together harmoniously. This competitive and individualistic attitude is further sharpened by standardised exams, wherein students are given grades and ranks to compare with each other, their personal value seemingly reduced to mere numbers and letters.

It’s about time to stop and ask ourselves: are these the attitudes and values we students want to develop? Personally, I think it is simply outrageous that nothing is being done to solve such blatantly obvious problems. 

Imagine yourself studying for countless hours for a single test, getting close to having multiple breakdowns until you finally feel somewhat confident about the test…….. Only for your brain to freeze in the exam. This is an example of the harsh reality that many students suffering from test anxiety have to face. The magnitude of the effect test anxiety has on students is further proven by a study conducted in 2010, which showed that test anxiety can affect 10 to 40 percent of all students - a shockingly large number. 

I’m sure we’ve all heard of Albert Einstein and his success before. But what’s interesting about him is that he was not a A+ student; rather, he was far from one, with his clueless and naive teachers saying “he wouldn’t amount to anything.” How ironic! One of the best scientists of the 21st century being called a failure in school! This example has made the fact that exams are not a true reflection of a student’s academic ability or their intellectual curiosity as clear as day. 

Exams by their very nature are inherently flawed and this is further exposed with many IB alumni telling me they weren't particularly intelligent or interested in their subjects; they simply learnt the techniques and the bare minimum to gain a good result in their exams. If this isn't the death of education, I don’t know what is. 

It is imperative that we urge those with power within the education community to stop sticking their heads in the sand and take responsibility for reforming our education system.