Turning Exams Upside Down and Inside Out
Is this a question? - Is this an answer? It's quite stressful for children to sit exams at the age of 10 or 11. It is perhaps fortunate that many young people are not fully aware of what is happening to them, and have a poor understanding of its rationale or relevance. Typically, children are trained how to revise, and they are taught exam technique, but no one really explains why they are being asked questions based on their comprehension of a text, or their verbal reasoning. Obedient children simply get on with the task, and some of them succeed from will-power alone. Creative children tend to become bored and rebellious, no matter how much you tell them that this is vital for their future career prospects. In order to begin to fix this problem of justifiable resistance, we need to step back from the compulsory testing regimes and the machinery of educational selection. New strategies are required. I'm sure testing is here to stay, but I do think that children shou