The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1914-01-19
Final Exams.

Final Exams.
"There wifi be more final examinations in
high school," said Prof Giles recently. AS the
sight of sail to a shipwrecked mariner, so was
this announcement to the students.
Final examinations" said the professor, "are
almost an injustice to the average ppuil They
are too much of memory test, and case where
the pupil with the best memory wins out. That
is not what school work is for. Pupils should
be promoted on what they do in the terms en-
|tirely'
Those who have an interest in our school
system and are solicitous for it's successfulness
in turning out thoroughly trained graduates will
hail this announcement with almost as much JOY
as the students themselves. To the latter it
means perhaps little more than a release from a
dread experience that haunts the end of the
term; to the intelligent citizen awake to the sig
nificance and worth of educational methods, it
means that great step ahead has been made in
Richmond school work.
The method has always been, and is still in
la majority of schools, to make the final test of
pupils work for the term by having him lock
I'D all his books and notes and then recite or
write from memory on long list of unannounced
questions.
AS Prof Giles says, this is merely test of
the memory and reveals very little of what a pu-
pil really knows or how we'll equipped he is in
any given branch.
Some pupils are gifted by nature with I'M
usually good memory. They pass with the high
est grades at the end of the year. Others have
not so good memory, but more permanent
grasp of the subject and have put in far more
patient and thorough work the subject, yet
they receive low grades. 1t is not fair to either
kind to pass them on the strength of a memory
examination.
The final encourage lazness on the
part of certain type of students. He knows
he can cram the whole thing into his head in a
few days at the end of the term, loafs along
meanwhile. This causes him to work for grade
rather than efficiency.
The final exam is unfair also in that it does
not really examine pupil in the most essential
thing: the right use of his tools. When subjects
were taught by word of mouth it was fair to
ask the pupil to carry it all in his head There
was no other way it could be carried. But now
that books, notes, references and other equip
ment have come into use, scholarship has come
to be, for the most part ability to use the right
TOOLS Men in business or the professional, don't
carry everything in their heads they ref
erence books and other means of research. There
FORE the really essential thing is that they know
how to use the tools of study.
The right kind of an examination, therefore
would test a pupil in his of the tools of
study, and this is thing the final examination
as usually conducted, does not do, for the simple
reason that it compes him to lock all his tools
in his desk.
Examinations are responsible for the dislike
many feel toward certain branches. How many
7 there are who dread the very sight Of Shakes
peare. Why? Simply because they were made
sick of him during week of examining and have
never recovered from the reaction
Worse than that, they also responsible fol
cheating in school. 1t is manifestly unfair t.
the pupil needessly to subject him to such ar
ordeal
r Of course tests of some kind should be used
but they should be so arranged that teacher
can determine the fitness of each particular pupi
in any given line.
2 1t might be shown, imagine, that the
A teachers themselves are responsible for the lone
continued use of the method 1t is as easy fo
them it is hard for the pupil. And while very
few of them, oftentimes, could pass the examina
tions Themselves they feel very learned sitting
behind table with books at hand quizzing the
$ pupils who sit in front of bookless desks. L
2 would require much more effort the part O.
the teacher to make rational test, hence they
/ have chung to the easier plan. But that is NJ
= slam on the teacher, because we are all as lazy
? as we dare be. 1t is simply fact about human