Speech Liam Berell
A standardized test is not a true measure of what a student can accomplish
We all know that feeling when you get a bad mark for a test. Your stomach sinks and the stress becomes overwhelming. What will my parents say? How will I get into a university? What did everybody else get? We start to beat ourselves up and compare our results to the rest. And through this obsession, we allow them to define us.
We are all good at something. Some of us can draw, some can surf, some can cook and not one of these skills requires being able to find the average gradient of a line. Of course education is important and don’t get me wrong, I am not at all going against it. However, I do disagree with the marking system. Marks put a label on us. All of us are expected to get amazing numbers and if we don’t we are punished. Personally I have become used to the wooden spoon so now they’ve decided to send me to extra
lessons for basically every subject- far more painful. What society fails to realize is that some of us are just not made to be doctors, lawyers or accountants. This situation fits perfectly with the quote “ Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid ” Many of us just were not created to get good marks and when we are judged off of them, we believe that we are stupid.
For those of you who know me, I have grown a burning passion for photography and videography, however, I have always looked at it as something I can only do on the side. I can’t say I have got 83% for photography but I can assure you that I am pretty good at it. The funny thing is I didn’t learn how to take photos or edit videos by writing tests. I learnt through a genuine passion and urge to learn about something that I really enjoyed. This is precisely the opposite of what marks teach us. Marks teach us that we don’t have a choice. They shape our understanding that we have to be good with numbers and words otherwise we will not get anywhere in our futures. We are never taught to do what we are passionate about or what we are actually skilled at. As a result, a lot of us fall into the 9 to 5, get married, have kids and settle down kind of life. Not that there is anything wrong with this, there are plenty of people who live this life and are happy, but a lot of us feel that we have to live like this, while actually we seek a more adventurous and spontaneous life which is not as planned out.
I read the other day that around 32% of students in a school have depression and 27% of it is caused by school stress. As a student, our stress levels are always through the roof and with stress there is depression. We are constantly trying to do well in school on top of doing homework on top of playing sports and on top of having a social life. Many of us become obsessed with getting good marks because that is what we are told to do and as a result we often begin to move away from certain things that make us happy or what we are actually good
at. Bad marks also cause us to believe that we are worthless compared to everyone else. We become highly critical of ourselves and some of us lose motivation to try and do anything at all. I have become a victim of this and I have found that my obsession over my marks drives me away from photography and hanging out with my friends.
What do marks actually measure? To be honest I don’t think that most of us even understand the work we are taught. We are loaded with so much information that we end up parrot learning everything for a test and forget all of it by the next week. Most of the information isn’t applied into our lives either and so none of it sticks. I’m also one of those people who get really stressed before a test which often results in a bad mark. Not because I don’t know what to say but because I read incorrectly or I forgot to put something in my answer. Surely that is not a true measurement of what I can achieve.
Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg, Charles Dickens and so many more dropped out of school. They realised that school didn’t teach them what they needed to know and so they dropped out to become extremely successful people. I’m not trying to say that dropping out of school is the answer because for every one successful drop out there are hundreds that have remained unemployed, bankrupted themselves, lost everything. Marks have proven to be the safest way to secure a future, even if it is a future you may not have dreamt for yourself. However, I am telling you that your standardised test marks do not measure what you can accomplish.
So now the question is, how do we change the marking system? Through some research, I found an academic system called Ungrading. In this process, work is marked as it traditionally has been, then, through revision and repetition, is gradually improved. Eventually ‘lesser’ performance is replaced by better work, but without the marks. Schools should also start to offer a broader range of subjects and renew the current education system to be more relevant. Students are then able to choose subjects more suited to them and learn helpful knowledge and skills which they will be able to apply to their lives
So a message for my peers is don’t worry so much about your marks. I know most of us have strict parents and stressful teachers and the mark system probably won’t change anytime soon however you all have that one thing that you’re good at. Keep working at it and remember that a standardized test is not a true measure of what you can accomplish.
