Morris Mtisi Post Correspondent
GOOD teachers do not continue to feed their students more new stuff or make a lot of noise about examinations when they are due. It only helps to confuse them and make them panicky.
Good teachers let students become candidates so that they give the examiner what they know and have.
One of the reasons students fail their examinations is pressure from anxious parents and teachers who make them feel like they are entering hell and not heaven. Our education system makes candidates feel like examinations are the end of life and if they fail . . . the sun will not rise again tomorrow morning. It will. The sun will rise tomorrow and what you do post-examinations determines whether your failure means ‘you are finished’ or only beginning the start of doing things more intelligently.
So let students write examinations. This is examination time. And this writer teacher wishes you only the best that can come out of you.
Do not panic. Examinations only test mastery of specific skills and facts. It is the only way of assessment education systems worldwide can use to determine levels of mastery and the pitching of new levels to rise or graduate from into higher levels. Examinations are not a means to bottleneck the good from the bad . . . to lead some to heaven and others to hell.
It is whether you have done your best and whether in every particular area of learning tested you did well, badly or not so well, that matters. If you have not done well but did your best, fine, it’s time to discover what exactly you are good at. If they have tested you in their examination what you are not good at and in what you cannot prove your mantle, find out what God gave you in those folded little fists when you said hello to this world.
Remember some of the most successful human beings on this earth, in whatever sense, did not pass examinations with distinctions from one level to the other. Some of the men and women, who made it to the top in whatever way, were only average performers and others indeed below-average performers. What are needed are a clear vision, purpose and focus and then diligently and bravely walking towards them. Do not waste time in the peer-pressure confusion. Stand up and out. Think. Collect yourself and push yourself towards your purpose and goal. Do not waste time musing over examinations that test what you do not know. Everybody was born with a gift or talent. Discover what it is and if going to school and writing examinations has not helped you, find out if some sporting is not your gift or talent, music maybe (composing or producing it), business maybe, no matter how small. You start small and grow. Maybe your gift is in acting drama or theatre performance. Maybe it is in working the soil where all money comes from. Love mud and dirty hands . . . prospect business from the bowels of earth.
Am I saying therefore examinations are not important and therefore don’t pay attention; don’t be serious to get the best out of them? Far from it! While these examinations are crucial or critical, choose your word, all I am saying is, Remember exams must not define you. Exams must never and will never determine who you will become in life. This message is important even for parents and teachers who are terribly anxious for their children to do well. What if they cannot and they have not been?
Among all you children writing exams, there is an artiste of Oliver Mtukudzi’s size and fame, a pedigree musician who doesn’t understand and doesn’t have to understand maths. An Oprah Winfrey, a Venus or Serena Williams maybe!
There is an entrepreneur among you, a Strive Masiiwa or black Steve Jobs or Zuckerberg. He does not and does not have to care about History or English Literature.
There is a rugby world-class player waiting to be like Ngoni Chibuwe, Martin Mangongo or Godwin Mangenje whose Chemistry marks do not matter.
There is a Sadio Mane or Michael Jordan amongst you whose physical fitness is more important than a grade in Physics.
If your child/ student gets top marks, praise God; but if he or she doesn’t, please don’t take away their self confidence and their dignity from them. Tell them it’s ok, it’s just an exam.
Your children /students are cut out for much bigger things in life.
Tell them that no matter what they score, that you love them; and don’t judge them. Please do this, and when you do, watch your children/students conquer the world.
One exam or low mark won’t take away their dreams or their talent.
Please do not think that doctors, engineers, lawyers, robotic scientists and professors of whatever nature, are the only happy people in the world.
Examinations are exceedingly important. But they are not everything. Grades are good, but they don’t define you.
Don’t let one exam or one grade define your whole future.
There is so much more potential right inside you.
It was Albert Einstein who said: “Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend the rest of its life believing it’s stupid.” Do you want your children to feel the same way?
Don’t let other people’s metrics of success become yours.
Be calm; there is life after exams.
Happy school year end!