Why not evaluate a child on the basis of what he wants to know rather than what he knows? After all, if we call him a learner…we should evaluate him on the basis of how keen is he to learn rather that how much he has learnt.
Can an examination be conducted with students asking questions instead of giving answers?
The basic problem that arises is how to evaluate a person on the basis of a question. It is difficult to do, but not impossible. And here we have to prioritise our purpose of education – do we want to evaluate a child on the basis of what he knows or do we also want to gauge what he may know, or rather, wants to know?
So why cannot a child write examinations (or whatever we may wish to call them), where s/he just writes what s/he wants to know? The child writes all the questions which come to his/her mind about the subject. And then the role of the teacher is not to mark his/her answer sheet, but to evaluate the quality of his/her questions and give answers back to that child. And the assessments would mark the child according to the how challenging the questions that have been put down.
Give the power back to the child – after all, s/he is the learner and unless the power is in the hands of the learner, s/he cannot learn. Society as a whole can decide on what it wants to educate its children about – but it is up to the child to learn that and move on.
The purpose of education is not children reproducing existing knowledge but children acquiring skills and knowledge to ask questions, which will help in the evolution of the existing body of knowledge. A true educator will agree that what we want from children is not answers but questions. Then what one learns can never be forgotten. If one forgets something, one never truly learnt it in the first place. All the effort to actually make children reproduce what they have learnt is worthless because even if they do so, there is no guarantee that they have learnt it.
Consider your own life. You may have reproduced the gospel truth in your examinations but ask yourself honestly - how much of it do you remember today? The answer would vary between 10% and 40%. Barely pass marks. If I say I always speak the truth…and write it…does it guarantee that I always speak the truth? No. Whatever remains is whatever is in the mind. And that is the truth.
We need to find what the child wants to know. This can be discovered by making the child submit questions instead of answers. We could tweak this a little bit and add,
‘What do I know?’ The power should be with the child to say and write what s/he has learnt. So, we may not require a question paper but just an answer sheet. After teaching three chapters, if the teacher wants to evaluate the students, she just needs to give a sheet to the children and ask them to write whatever they have learnt and how it has helped them.
I call the above ‘Quexamination’ – an examination where a child writes what s/he has learnt and writes questions about what s/he wants to learn about. I can see fuming academicians here; it is just an experimental idea which could be piloted. At least some of the classes from grades 4 to 8 could experiment with this idea for one of their term examinations. There may be some wonderful results from this exercise. A Quexamination would also fulfil another major objective of an ‘examination’ – to find the areas which the student needs to work upon. The student would spell out what s/he wants to know. It would also promote honesty in children. There would be no preparation required for this test. There would be minimal weightage for what the student knows and more weightage for what s/he wants to know.
If this experiment were to be taken forward, I understand it may be difficult for us as a society to grade and categorise students. There is one wild idea I have.
In Grade 12, each student writes a book. We call it the School Experience Book. This book would be the child’s summary of what he has learnt in school and what he considers important from school education. It would contain all the knowledge the child thinks is important, which s/he learnt at school. It would have photographs, poems – anything the child wants to put into the book. It would be the Bible (no religious connotations) of that person. It could run into more than 100 pages. In this book, s/he also notes down what s/he wants to do further in life. S/he has to make a case for a career in that field. Why and how do they consider themselves fit for that branch of education? They also include questions they want to further explore in life. Obviously it would take a lot of time to evaluate this book.
So, perhaps we need to set up two CBSEs – i.e. CBSE 1 and CBSE 2. They work in alternative years so that they have a complete year to evaluate the School Experience Books.
This would also give a break of a year to the children – a concept I have mentioned in another chapter. After a
year’s break, a national board examines the books and decides on percentages and grades. It gives a recommendation for that child on some set parameters which s/he can use for his/her professional education. Professional colleges would then place half the weightage on the CBSE recommendation and the other half on their own test.
The above experiment leaves a lot to be created by the children and empowers them to reflect and take decisions on their choice of career. It is not difficult to evaluate a child on a report. While it may sound quixotic, if we really want children to lead meaningful lives, it is necessary to look at such alternatives.
After all, the Armed Forces look at a 6- day interview with psychological, physical and academic components, as compared to other professions. Why then can we not look at something more meaningful as an evaluation for the school system? It would definitely be worth it. Although it is a difficult exercise to manage, it is certainly do-able. Perhaps, it requires another book to examine this new system? Nevertheless, it is high time schools started experimenting with new forms of examinations or quexaminations at least from Grades 3 to 8, which are considered the ‘safe classes’.
With the advent of CCE, it may very well be possible for children to give examinations in variable formats. This format of quexaminations could be used in a FA. While the idea seems utopian, we could at least experiment with having a question paper in which the last question is: Please write questions about what you would like to know on the subject.
Professor Harbans Mukhia, a world renowned historian, taught Medieval History at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi and is now retired. His question paper was the most unusual I have ever seen. While the question paper was in the usual format with 6 or 7 questions, what was unusual was the end, where he stated: ‘If you don’t like any of the questions above, please create your own question and answer it’. Some of us actually did that.
All he would do is distribute the question paper and disappear for two hours…come back and collect the answer sheets.
(Quexaminations is one of the chapters of Shankar Musafir's book - To, The Principal...Yours sincerely)
