Just sharing my experiences, talking about the situation around me and explaining why I'm so pessimistic about things.
A couple of my secondary school friends shared this link on Facebook just recently. http://www.todayonline.com/voices/promote-learning-not-scoring-well-exams. Basically, it's talking about how my country's education system focuses too much on exams only to produce students who are able to memorise to obtain better grades without actually learning. Unfortunately, despite the fact that countless individuals have spoken up about this before and about the way we study, I am extremely pessimistic about the way things are going to change anyway. I've always thought about talking about these things recently but it's simply so complicated that a single blog post wouldn't be able to cover the surface of this issue, not to mention the fact that I'm not exactly extremely knowledgeable in this field and I'm not very strong in my language. What I can offer, is perhaps some of my personal experience as a student.
Firstly, I'm glad to say that this problem doesn't happen in each and every school in my country. At least, I'm proud to say that in my secondary school we actually focus a great deal in learning and understanding whatever that is being taught. I have a great number of teachers who constantly emphasise to us the importance for learning and understanding the concepts rather than just memorising the basic ideas if we couldn't grasp it. Perhaps I was lucky to have met great teachers, (Thinking about it makes me feel ashamed that I wasn't exactly the most polite/mature/understanding student around. Not even close!) perhaps it was the culture of my school, regardless the factors my secondary school friends do share the same sentiments as myself. However, clearly it had not been the case elsewhere. Entering a Junior College with over 800 people I know I'm bound to meet different kinds of people. To think that nearly my entire class is filled with people who would forgo their CCA for their work, even when its a measly once/twice a week. Here's more to the story. They are the ones who would refuse to take down notes if they find out that it's a concept which would not be tested for the exams even when the teachers encourage us to write it down! On the otherhand, they are also the ones who would copy the teacher's answers literally word for word if it was relevant to the syllabus.
Why do I think that this problem is rather difficult to resolve? Here's my logic behind it.
While it is easy to wag your finger at the system for breeding people who are results oriented, or to blame the way the system used to rank schools that indirectly caused us to focus too much on examination results, or perhaps to blame my society which molds people that only focuses on the tangible results, the reason (Which is most definitely caused by an array of factors) is too complicated to blame a single entity. Resolving the issue with multiple root factors requires an equally complicated approach to tackle what we see as a problem , which is difficult to achieve. Here's an example. While there are people claiming that the education system is 'flawed' with our heavy emphasise on exams which had led us to memorise our work rather than to understand what is being taught, the act of memorising and focusing on ''exam grades only'' is a tried and tested method that had worked for many before yourself and even by changing the way things are taught, many might not be willing to change and risk their chances for a higher education, reemphasising the fact that this situation is far more complex! (Like a dead knot I would say) While the article did mentioned that ''We need to realise that a good life consists of more than that (A good degree, high paying job etc)'' That's easy for a university undergrad to say!
We are all standing at different points in this rat race, each with different priorities. I am a science guy, I talk about understanding concepts too, but not everything in life can be accommodating to everyone I suppose and things are difficult to change. If we really want to make the switch we would really need much time and fervour. The question is, can we last long enough to make the switch?
