Under Pressure pt.1

It is that time of the year again....exam time. The time that any student dreads. Everyone, from little children in Yr. 4 all the way up to University is busy studying furiously and waiting for it all to be over... Hopefully for students all over the island, by the time this is oublished, it will be all over for them.

As a parent, and a teacher myself, and obviously as one-time student, it makes you wonder...

Why do we have so many exams in our educational system?? Children as young as seven are sitting for exams in at least five subjects, twice a year.. Comparisons are odious, but seeing that I am currently living in the UK with two children in primary school, maybe they cannot be helped.....

In all of their primary years, UK students experience exams twice, at the end of yr.2 (English and Math) and at the end of yr.6 (English, Math and Science). Why is it absolutely necessary that Maltese children have at least double that, each year? Why not have a system of continuous assessment that lasts throughout the whole school year? Rather than an one or two-hour exam with so much riding on it? When the actual day of the exam may simply be a bad day?

How relevant are all the subjects that students have to study? What practical use is it to an eight-year-old to learn stuff like the finer points of the compass? How many of us ever use all the extraneous stuff we learned at school in our daily lives? Stuff we very probably hated too? Sometimes, you can barely find a practical use for the stuff you loved...

Even the whole concept of 'studying for exams' is suspect... If exams are in core subjects where the main focus is on concepts rather than on facts to be memorised, there should be no need to study..once you understand a concept you only need a little practice to consolidate it, and as a test approaches you need only revise.

Studying for exams is the symptom of an educational system that is still tied to paper and pencil, to sitting at a desk, a system based on book learning, without giving any importance to other ways of learning. A  system based on cramming, on stuffing our students full of knowledge without leaving space for much else.

Teachers are under enormous pressure to deliver a too-vast syllabus within a set time-frame.. Teachers are human too, and there is only so much you can do. In addition to the pressure with the syllabus, teachers also have  vast amounts of paperwork (which parents never see). All this is detracting from what teaching should be about...helping each student achieve his/her potential.

Within families, tensions rise, as adults become more short-tempered and snappy, and children are overwhelmed by the pressure. 

These days school holidays are hardly holidays anymore.... My niece is 8; she got a Holiday Extra Work Pack over summer (ending yr.3); she got a Revision Pack of about 20 double-sided sheets for each core subject (Maths, English, Maltese) over Christmas. In addition, she started exams last Friday, meaning she spent the Carnival holidays revising/studying... My sister took a couple of days off from work,and instead of spending decent quality-time with her daughter over the 'holidays', it ended up being a stressful time for both of them.

Pressure pressure pressure.

In spite of this, many of us parents grit our teeth and plough ahead with studying with their children. To be fair, this is the only strategy that we learned from our own student years.

But is it not short-sighted to think that our strategies are automatically applicable to our kids?

Children today are different from what we were at their age. Nowadays, a child can find whatever s/he is interested in with a few taps on a touch screen. Their childhood is fundamentally different from ours. The world we inhabit and its messages have changed too... Shouldn't an education system be ever-evolving and take that into consideration too..??? 

The concept of expending time and energy on something that does not interest us has become obsolete in today's world. As adults we're told, "If it doesn't interest you; move on". Why should it be any different for children? 

So, maybe we as parents, educators and policy makers should question the wisdom of a system that still applies the logic of yesterday to the world of today. Who knows, it might be the solution to easing the pressure?

Since I moved abroad, I've had frinds tell mee wistfully 'Hekk sew (That's nice!)' when we talk about our different educational experiences as parents.... Is it not  ludicrous that moving becomes a "solution" to the pressure in our educational system?

Of lettuce and hot air....

Emily Slater has autism. Like most people on the autistic spectrum, she has significant difficulty in learning more than one language. And this shows in her exam results…while she struggles with her Maltese O-Level, she has satisfied all the other entry criteria. Last week, Emily took her case to the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Obviously, this made the news, and fuelled plenty of facebook debate.

There were all sorts of comments and opinions, ranging from the insensitive to the plain stupid….

Let’s get a few facts straight.

Malta is a bilingual country. Both Maltese and English are the official languages of the country. Having said that, English is the lingua franca in many countries of the world. Our bilingualism comes as much from financial expediency as from our time under British rule.

The Maltese language with its very specific niche is what is truly our own. I live close to one of the world’s most multi-cultural cities. Any time, any day you can hear different languages, different accents ..and yet, I repeatedly get asked, often by strangers, to describe Maltese as ‘it is different from any other language’.

The fact that as a nation, many of us fail to perceive the uniqueness of our language is a great shame. So yes, I do understand the initial indignation expressed by some.

But….

This is not a story about national pride or about our language. A sarcastic round of applause to the media who depicted it as such!!

This is not about doing away with the Maltese language. This is about a young person with a learning issue, and about working around that issue for her to achieve her potential. This is about inclusion.

It is about questioning the established patterns, things which have been that way forever..

We are a bilingual country, so why can’t we have either one language or the other in cases like this?

If University feels strongly about keeping Maltese as an entry requirement (as it should, after all) why is it that foreign students applying to study there are excused from knowing Maltese? Anyone who’s ever applied to study at a university in a foreign country knows that prospective students are asked to demonstrate competence in the language of the country. The books in university libraries abroad are usually in the local language.

Why do our students not have suitable textbooks in Maltese? Why does English persist as the language of Physics, Chemistry, ICT, Psychology?  Indeed, this is the case with most subjects from senior school right up to university level.

I am all for cherishing our unique language… but sadly, there is no logic to having Maltese as a university entry requirement. Beyond maybe an obvious and rather ham-fisted attempt to give some dignity to something that should be a matter of national pride, but is often treated like a poor relation.

This is a story about inclusion (and in this case, the lack thereof). And sadly, this is not limited to this particular case. How is a student with ADHD supposed to succeed in an education system that is based on cramming, long hours of studying and rote-learning? Make no mistake, for all its wheelchair ramps and notices in Braille, university is far from inclusive.

Invisible disabilities are still disabilities, and when people with such conditions work hard to overcome obstacles, they should not be punished by a system whose inclusiveness only extends to visible disabilities.

Emily has been to Strasbourg to protest over what she justly perceives as an infringement of her right to continuing her education. Hopefully, things will move in the right direction now and adequate concessions will be made, not just for her, but also for future prospective students with invisible disabilities.

As to what will happen after she does graduate is a story for another day…..