Picture this. A kid sitting in the dining room earnestly looking at her notebook, trying very hard to focus, sometimes with tears in her eyes, a mother either standing behind her sitting beside her, asking questions from the lessons on the kid's notebook, voice slightly elevated, sometimes wielding a hanger on one hand, the other pointing at the notebook that is either slightly crumpled or wet with tears. That's how most people review their kid right before an exam. I know that's how my brothers studied when they were young.
They say it's tough love. I say it's unnecessary stress put on the very young minds of children. When people say "let kids be kids" the examination part of childhood seem to be left out of this. There's a reason why kids dread having exams. Exams are the least fun in studying. That's why I am so thankful that I came across the Charlotte Mason Method. My kid is in first grade and we have just finished her 3rd quarter exams. All I can say is that this year has so far been the happiest she's ever been on exam weeks.
One of the main reasons she loves our exams is because all she has to do is to talk. I'm sure most parents can relate to how talkative a young kid can be. That's because they really are full of amazement, full of life, and so full of thoughts and stories about the world we're in which they are now discovering, be it through study or playtime. In traditional schools, we simply take a written exam, we are ask what's this and that, who's who and what's what. As soon as we answer those, our exam is over, we can then move on to the next quarter, then we review what we learn, then review everything to answer the same forms of questions on the exams.
Our exams in our homeschooling journey is heavy on oral exams. It lets me hear exactly what's going on in her mind, what she remembers about the stories we read, what sticks and what doesn't, and most importantly, it helps me find out what she thinks about the lessons we study. We occasionally have a few written exams, especially in Math and in Filipino where we study about Baybayin.
Kids' hands tend to get a little too tired from holding a pencil for long periods of time. Having them do long periods of writing down what they remember about lessons would be too taxing for them. I want my kid to love all aspects of learning, including the exams which is why we focus on oral exams like having her narrate her favorite story from Aesop, or describe her favorite character from Shakespeare's plays, or her favorite scenes from Ang Mga Kwento ni Lola Basyang. For our social studies, I had her compare the lives of Andres Bonifacio and Jose Rizal. It's interesting how she focuses on the childhood part of our heroes. I can see how she relates to their stories so much through these kinds of exams.
When I was still studying, I have a teacher in High School who said we were "Enteng Kabisote". Which basically means we rely on memorizing the terminologies in our lessons rather than understanding the lesson itself. He said that to us when he saw us reviewing for our quarterly exams, reviewers on hand, quizzing each other to make sure we know the answer to the possible questions. We feel like we were cheated whenever there are parts of our reviewer that didn't come up on the questions. I can also clearly remember that way back in college, we had to memorize 50 scientific names of different plants here in the Philippines. I aced that exam, being that I used to be good at memorizing, but now I can't remember a single scientific name from the list.
How our exams look like right now, my daughter doesn't even need to review any of our lessons. She is not being asked "what is", she is being asked "what does she think about..." When we studied Ang Pag Ibig ni Maryang Sinukuan for our Filipino Literature, she simply stated what she thinks about Marya, Sinukuan, Prinsesa Liwayway and Maryang Sinukuan. And to me, that is the biggest reason why we chose the Charlotte Mason Method for our homeschooling journey. We hope to train her to formulate her own opinions based on the things she reads and learns. She's only 6 and to me, her being able to speak what she thinks is a big thing.
Althroughout the quarter, I let her narrate the stories we read and based on those narrations, I list down the possible exam questions we'll be using. Last quarter, I picked from the list. For this quarter, I wrote down the questions on pieces of paper and I let her pick from the jar of questions what she needs to answer. It somehow has that "Miss Universe Q&A portion" kind of vibe. And she loved it! I may or may not use this same kind of exam style next quarter.
After reading a story, traditional schools exams usually consists of "Who is the main character?" or What is the problem in the story or Where did this or that happen, etc. While this style of questioning helps kid pay attention to those important details in the story, it distracts them from seeing the whole picture. It somehow trains them to "listen so they can answer" instead of "listening so they can understand." While knowing the answer to who, what, where, when, why, and how is important, I believe we also need to hear out what the kids think about what they heard or read without trying to influence them into saying what we want them to say. Going back to the story of Ang Pag Ibig ni Maryang Sinukuan, I asked my daughter to describe her favorite character in the story and tell me what she thinks or feel about it. She then proceeds to say her favorite is Prinsesa Liwayway, then she said "The story didn't say who she really is, but I think she, and Maryang Sinukuan are the same person." She then goes on to tell me why which made that simple question become a rich explanation about the entire story. There is so much knowledge and wisdom we can get from kids when we ask them open ended questions.
Examinations are an important part of a child's studies. It helps parent educators to find out a lot of things about their child. In our homeschooling journey, we use it to celebrate the end of a quarter, signalling the beginning of a new one. It keeps the excitement and the love of learning without having to have the kid feel the stress of having to memorize a lot of stuff. Of course, it could be a different thing for older kids, but a grade 1 student doesn't need that kind of stress.
Our Charlotte Mason inspired examinations helps us let our kid be kid for as long as we can. It's the end of the 3rd quarter but it has not yet fully ended unless the exams are all done, and graded, and submitted. Once that's done, what's left to do is the planning part for the next quarter. That can wait till tomorrow. I had to enjoy this weekend first before diving in to the admin tasks of our homeschooling journey. Ciao!
