Figuring Out The Test
I’m a big fan of “The Walton’s” television show. I’ve seen the episodes so many times I know which one it is just by the title. There was one when Jim-Bob was graduating from high school and he discovered he was eligible to be valedictorian. He didn’t want the honor and decided to rid himself of the responsibility. All he had to do was fail the final test.
Elizabeth, his youngest sibling took him to task and informed him, if he deliberately failed the test, then that too, is cheating. He didn’t fail, and took on the responsibility and honor of valedictorian for his class.
I had a question posed to me recently that caused me only momentary pause. Would you cheat on a test if you knew you would not get caught? My immediate reaction to that is, “No, of course not!” ….and I honestly don’t believe I would. My conscience would kill me!
As I talked with a friend of mine about this she shared her boyfriend just answers according to a pattern. Apparently, multiple choice tests, although answers should be random, have some kind of pattern, that if skilled enough to catch, can make the test easy to complete, even if you don’t know the answer! I’m not nearly clever enough to figure that out. That would take longer than taking the test!
Another friend says her son just doesn’t care and puts the same letter all the way through the test. Needless to say, this young man has problems passing the test! Is this the same idea “Jim-Bob” had when he was going to deliberately fail his test? The child who doesn’t care, or even try to do his best, is cheating himself.
We all learn, and respond differently to material being presented and the way we respond. Sometimes if uninterested, some will catch the ‘bare-minimum’ of the material to just get through. Others will pour themselves in an assignment to get the most they can from it.
When I think about learning for the test, I remember my young ones being ‘readied’ for the ‘mandated standardized test’ every child in our public schools had to take. It was more of a ‘school assessment test’ than a ‘student test.’ It’s what they were expected to have learned overall in their school, and it was important that schools received a high score.
Children with disabilities also learn, but differently. Are they ready, when their peers are, for that same kind of test? Maybe, but maybe not. I don’t think we’re supposed to learn just ‘to pass a test.’ What good is the material if we can’t apply it to real life; if we can’t make use of it somehow?
Don’t misunderstand; history, math, language and other subjects are extremely important and have daily application when we think about it. But learning should be ‘for the joy of learning.’ We need to understand (and perhaps in some way make our youngsters understand) that the information we ‘get’ is information we will likely use in at some time in our lives, even if it’s in our later years. This is important regardless of what grade we are in, or our particular abilities—- or lack thereof!
But learning material just to get by, rarely does us any good. We’ve got to care about what we are learning, or it’s going to a temporary file that will eventually be deleted in our minds. Then what good is it?
I know our students, at all levels, are often overwhelmed with information and data for a variety of different classes. And sadly, much of what our children learn is “for the test.” Learning information is of greater value than just for plugging into a test. It should be vital and worthwhile; something that we willingly retain to improve quality of life!
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