To test or not to test?

"Let's face it, if it were not for the exam, who here would remember what we learned?"

I was listening to the Ameer of Hayl telling the students to take the exam after the class Code of Scholars, as usual, but something else struck me this time. I've heard him saying it so many times before, but this time, I just felt different about it.

And then a personal realization dawned on me.

I've been reading about the other side of 'education', the side that most or some homeschoolers are on, the side that abhors testing, perfectly structured schooling at home, and pre determined curriculum. I've kept an open mind about things. It's not like I never knew about all this unschooling business before. I've read about it, but at the time, its appeal to me was like a dead rat. However, now, I'm becoming more curious about what they do have to say, and I have to admit that they are making sense.

Maybe 90% of us are the product of schooling, and being one of those, I find it very difficult to imagine unstructured learning. We have gotten so used to the concept of a group of kids gathered together in a classroom (an artificial setting if you look at it from another perspective), and taught subjects, that it's hard to accept the concept of children learning the same lessons and maybe even more in a more natural setting like the home, post office, grocery store, garage, etc.

Because of this system we have set up to 'educate' our future generation, we have had to devise strategies to make learning fun and appealing, and most importantly, we have had to devise a method by which we can make sure they are indeed 'learning'. So we come up with tests, to see if they have retained what have been taught. Since then, in my opinion, the focus of the education system has trodden a path of a downward spiral, for kids who ace their exams, are indeed good exam takers, but are not necessarily academic appliers.

People who graduate out of college, when looking for jobs, are permitted entry level jobs. Why? Because they don't yet have the experience. Four years or more (for some) in college, and no experience? Then we spend a year or more, gaining those experience, and for some areas, not even utilizing fully what was learned in the course of the four year study. To make it clearer, let me just state that one who is naturally interested in computer and technology and pursues the field on his own, even without attending a four year course of study in college, can be an excellent computer scientist, or actually, an even better one than one who majors in Computer Science in college and comes out as fresh as a young seedling.

Why do we now need tests, to help us retain knowledge? I have in my school days, crammed for tests, only to forget the facts again and again. On the other hand, I have also, on my non school days, researched topics I am naturally curious about on my own free will, and retained the facts without any need for tests.

When N took the Ohio Achievement Reading Test in early October, I asked her,

"Were you nervous?"

"No. Why would I be?" she replied non-chalantly.

I was taken aback at the casual manner in which she questioned my question, for to a product of schooling like myself, it's the norm that you would be nervous during a test, or before it at least. It made me think. I've never pressured them to ace any tests. In fact, I never paid much heed to the results they sent in, as long as they don't affect grade promotion. If it were up to me, I wouldn't even have them take the tests. However, I also feel that I have, without realizing, passed on the 'culture' of taking tests. I don't know if it had much effects on my kids though. I hope not. I have to admit, that the pressure of having your kids measure up to the kids in public school is really something to contend with. I think it's something every homeschooling parent has to contend with. Some deal with it better.

I personally hate competition, and I had quite a hard time dealing with it in the AlMaghrib culture where they spurred people by way of competing with each other. I'm not saying competition is bad, but I don't need competition to produce my best effort. I don't need to compete with 10 other people to be pushed to make dawah. It's just an unneeded pressure. My idea of a competition is a competition with myself. I hope I have conveyed it to my children. Have I?

However, these things, such as tests, friendly competition, are sometimes in dire need. Why? Because of the effects of schooling to the massive public. We have meddled with natural curiosities in human beings, and subjected ourselves to being dependent on other to tell us what we need to know at this age and so forth. We have subjected ourselves to be passive recipients and wait for orders in order to learn. We wait for others to tell us to learn, and what to learn, and how much to learn. We have lost autonomy over our own learning, and thus have to be cajoled into this simple natural process by methods like tests and competitions.

I may be completely off my rockers here, but I will let my mind take its natural course in figuring things out as I tread down this path of discovery. Right now, I'm leaning more towards au naturel.