Our Kid is at home today, as are most grades 7 and 8 junior high school students. He'll be at home all next week as well because grade 9s have to go through the same robotic hell, using a 2B pencil to fill in little circles which are scanned by computer.
Unnecessary? Of course they are because the only teaching of 'relevance' these students receive in the preceding months is geared to answering the test questions, many of which are, as I've often noted, badly formulated with possible multiple correct answers or none at all.
The following headlines gleaned from the Jakarta Post tell the tale.
Tuesday 23 March
- Despite 'leaks', first day of national exams goes smoothly.
- Leaks, problems mar national final exam
Wednesday 24 March
- National exams still problematic*
Thursday 25 March
- Schools urged to have post-exam cooldown period
(for students suffering stress.)
Friday 26 March
- Students from across the country to take UGM tests.
Yogya's University of Gadjah Mada will hold entrance exams on Sunday, thus demonstrating that the national exams are of no value in determining who goes on to further education.
*The same problems crop up every year. These include misdirected packages of exam papers, sets of answers being sold, answers being sent by text message, teachers changing students' answer sheets, and students unable to take test due to sickness or pregnancy and uncertain whether they can take them at a later date. .
Fellow blogger, Harry Nizam, has suggested that my posts are rarely positive but, hey, here's a positive suggestion for the cooling down period.
Let them play games and Countdown, a popular TV game show which tests vocabulary and maths, can be easily adapted for classroom use.
This is a screengrab from Tuesday's show.
No comments:
Post a Comment