Reflections from video “ I will not let exam results
decide my fate”. By Sully Breaks.
The educational system was designed to allow a certain
group develop certain skills in a very specific industrial system (Serra, 2013).
Many years later we are using a very similar system
for everyone (compulsory education) in a world with very different needs. The
responsibility to change this, in my opinion does not fall on teachers or even
schools. If falls on the whole educational system.
Educational ministers and exam board directors should,
in my opinion, design curriculums, which offer a wider variety of subjects and
learning objectives. Darwin’s idea of evolution in nature starts with variety
and then selection in different contexts. We have a selection process that does
not have much freedom for variety. We have many types of intelligences
(Gardner, 1999), yet in the current school system we are mainly filtering
through one.
Teachers and schools should, in my opinion, offer a
wider variety of subjects (possible within the limits set as per above), and
assessments (not just traditional exams but also projects in which students
have access to anything they want, possibly even their peer’s ideas).
Students and their families, in my opinion, should see
that there are many opportunities in life, and that having a university degree
is not the only door open to success. An exam result should never decide
anyone’s fate. At the end our happiness depends only 10% on external stimuli
and 90% on how we interpret it (Covey, 1997).
Bibliography.
Covey, S. R. (1997). The 7 habits of highly effective
families. Golden Books.
Gardner, H. (1999). Intelligence reframed: Multiple
intelligences for the 21st century. Basic Books (AZ).
Serra, A. (2013) Reflections on Sir Ken Robinson’s TED
talk “Do schools kill creativity?”) Retrieved from http://leadership-technology.blogspot.ch/2013/03/do-schools-kill-creativity.html
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