Great Moments in British Higher Education: Examiners Told to Make Science Exams Easier -- plus a rant!
The once-proud British education continues its headlong rush into the abyss.
Apparently not satisfied with turning liberal arts and the humanities into a howling wasteland of willful ignorance, spineless skullduggery, and the absolute glorification of just about everything but actual learning, edu-crats are assaulting that last bastion of hard work, the sciences.
Pretty soon, edu-crats edu-cretins will start penalizing students for CORRECT answers on exams?
Fools! Are you unhappy with the level of student scores on exams? yes? What do you do to fix that? Do you improve the quality of education? No, you make the exams easier! What a complete absurdity.
Oh, and it gets even better. Listen to the mealymouthed words of one such edu-crat:
But Jim Sinclair, the JCQ director, emphatically denied that the changes would lead to a rise in the number achieving grade C – the top grade in the foundation tier. Future results would depend on how the marks were allocated. Dr Sinclair added that the changes would help to stop children being “turned off” by science. “Part of the desire is that the student can come out of the exam with a feeling of success. “The vast majority of candidates taking this exam are going to achieve grades D to G, and they deserve a positive experience of science. that they have actually tackled a significant proportion of the questions, and achieved the best grade expected,” he said “They can only have that by being allowed to attempt questions which are at their level . . . It is making exams accessible to candidates.” |
Oh, yeah? Here's something for people who can't handle it. If you can't stand the heat, then get out of the kitchen. I mean, really, in what kind of upside-down world do examiners make exams easier to make sure little Tommy or Sally emerges from the exam room with a positive experience? Will we soon be printing exams on pale green paper printed with dancing smiling flowers because it's friendlier than the traditional intimidating black-and-white? After all, the very colors of black ink and white paper imply that there is a Right and Wrong answer without ambiguity! No no no, we can't be having that! Oh, I know! Make the paper and ink nice neutral shades of GRAY -- no Right or Wrong, just GRAY! You don't even have to write answers -- just describe your feeeeeeeeeeeeeeelings. *snort of derision*
We should be all working hard to make sure little Tommy and Sally go into the exam room well-prepared and well-taught, able to handle competently whatever questions appear on the test paper! Competence and confidence born of study, discipline, and work is better than a soft but ultimately hollow self-esteem based on no personal work or achievement at all.
What is this nonsense about students "deserving a positive experience of science"? The ultimate positive experience is receiving and participating in a good, thoughtful program of teaching and training. Nobody "deserves" a positive result in anything. You have to work hard for a positive result! This is called common sense. The ongoing obsession with how students "feel", this sordid echo of the self-esteem religion, is going to gut us all in the end. Besides, the obsession with grades is pernicious! The priority isn't on teaching and learning the subject any longer; it's on getting some grade.
But back to the students deserving -- DESERVING! -- a positive experience! Well, what the heck was I doing in school, then? I took difficult classes in the higher maths and the hard sciences. I toiled and labored and cried and stayed up late and wrestled with equations and formulas. It was HARD. Was it a positive experience? Maybe not at midnight with crumpled-up paper and broken pencils all over the floor. But now that it's all over, I'm glad I did it.
"Deserving" a positive experience, indeed! Achieving it by dumbing-down exams, indeed! This word "deserving." Pretty soon it's going to turn into a RIGHT. All students, edu-crats will declare from on high, will have a fundamental human right to a positive experience in science! Run it through Brussels, sneak it into the EU constitution/treaty/whatever if you like. Pass this, and sooner or later you can browbeat the last teachers and examiners into final submission -- those stubborn holdouts still refusing to bend the knee to the edu-idolatry of witless change. But no! The student and his/her self-perception must rule supreme!!
Soon I'll no longer to be allowed to mark papers and exams with red ink! Soon I'll no longer be permitted to give exams or assign papers at all! Soon I'll be forbidden to make any demands of any student at all. Soon I'll not be allowed to say to a student, "You're wrong, and you got your facts wrong too" even if the student IS wrong and has his/her historical facts all wrong! And in the sciences and maths? The end is coming! Soon, 2 + 2 will not only = 4. Soon 2 + 2 will = whatever the student wants it to be, because how dare oppressive, cruel teachers stifle poor little Tommy's creativity and self-esteem by insisting that there is only 1 right answer! Besides, aren't we living in a world of total relativism? That's the truly enlightened, progressive, humane, inclusive, compassionate thing to do!
*MM beats her head on her desk. I'm too tired to rant. Crawls...away...Must have...coffee...COFFEE!...*