Exams and Their Results

I am sure that most of you know that academic examination results ranks very high on the typical Malaysian parent's list. They use it as a benchmark of how 'clever' their offsprings are.

Some have even gone as far as to make it the sole reason for their offspring's existence!
You know the drill - go to school, come back home and it's tuition, tuition and tuition some more. Then it's homework, homework and more homework both from the school and the tuitions.

I think all that obsession with good results is really unneccessary. Yes, it's well and good to have a good education but are good results in examinations the only yardstick to measure that?

In the end it's just a piece of paper with a bunch of alphabets corresponding to some subjects. Nothing more than that. Our education system is not the best in the world. There's too much 'spoon-feeding' going on and one known formula to get good results is to 'regurgitate' all the facts from the textbooks. 'Regurgitating' does not need understanding. All it needs is a good memory.

So in essence a mediocre student with a good memory can obtain fantastic results in examinations if he/she can master the art of 'regurgitating'. So what does the result tell us? Can we really say having a string of A's means we have a good student? Not really.

Also, we must know that in life there are days when you are up and days when you are down. If it so happens that an examination is held on a day when you are down and you get poor results, does that mean you're a bad student? For all we know the student might just be having a bad week or month for whatever reasons.

Exams results can only tell us so much. It's not the only factor to consider. I would want my children to first of all understand the lessons taught. I would want to have critical thinking skills rather than just getting good results from 'regurgitating' facts. And I wouldn't mind them failing one or two exams along the way either. Failure is a part of life whether we like it or not. Learning how to deal with failure and learning from your failure and moving on from there is much more important than scoring a string of A's at the price that one is unprepared to face failure of any kind.

Also, apart from academics, children also need to learn other essential skills. Skills such as communication skills, social skills like how to mix and deal with people. They are never going to learn these things if we keep them locked up in the house or academic institutions with all sorts of tuitions most of the time.

So give the children a break. Let them be children sometimes and encourage them to go out and play with other children. Studying, classrooms,books and exams are not all they have to deal with when they grow up. As parents we must equip them with all the necessary skills that they need to face the world on their own. That is not limited to just getting A's in examinations.