Tests. We hate them.
This from a student today: Finals might kill us.
No. No one has ever died from taking a final, I said.
But they might leave eternal emotional scars.
Well, there is that.
Having to prove you’ve learned something at the end of the year when you’re tired and the sun is shining –that is some kind of torture.
This will be my first year to administer end-of-year exams in Spanish, and I had this sick, not-the-one-taking-the-test thought that finals are really a celebration. My students made notecards of vocabulary words, to study for the coming test, and I thought, Look at all those cards! How exciting that we’ve learned all that in such a short time.
I quoted Dave Ramsey to the students, You can tell who’s been skinny dippin’ when the tide goes out.
I’m going to know who has really made progress in my class when I see what they can do on a final. There has to be an assessment –how else would there be proof that something has been learned?
James says:
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. (Proverbs 1:2-3 NIV)
Tests.
No fun. Hard work. Seemingly life threatening. They push you to the limit and about three hours and two cold pizzas past it.
But without testing how will there be proof of faith?
You and my beloved James are so right but I don’t like to have to face it…testing=proof of faith.
So hard but so true!
It is so hard, but we want the results.
How very true! I used to dread tests until I learned that they were tools to help me gauge my learning. Then they didn’t seem so freak-out scary. Our daughter is the same way, she actually has accommodations because of her anxiety – but when her father and I stopped solely focusing on her grades and more on her feeling confident in what she did to study or practice, , the testing and the grades improved…. we told her grades are just tools, they do not define YOU.
Good advice for school and the struggles of life!