We made it to the end of exam season and just look at the happy faces around here.
I don’t remember Primary school exams being this big a thing back when I was a kid. There were papers at the end of every semester with grades attached but they were pretty much nbd right up till the PSLE. Sometimes my mom would present us with gifts of assessment books and we would have to make a show of getting through them but there was a lot of phoning it in without much consequence.
Helping the kids navigate their exams has been a learning process for us. We started out trying to be all chill about exams. I was all “just do your best, don’t worry about the grades” and they took the second part quite literally because Tru skipped home with his Chinese paper at the end of P1 to show me the 8/50 circled in bright red ink. His Chinese teacher followed up with a call several days later to gently inform me that that was the second worst grade in the entire school while suggesting that it wasn’t too early for an intervention.
That made us reconsider my approach with the chillness. We started them on Chinese tuition and put in more hours coaching them on the dreaded 听写. Every exam season, my favourite websites are testpapersfree.com and sgtestpaper.com, both bookmarked and visited daily.
Since then, the question I’ve been trying to address with every impending exam was the first part about doing your best. What does that look like for a 10/11-year-old?
Effort, for one. But how much effort was enough? An hour of revision a day? 2 hours? Do we benchmark it against the average? Which is what, 30 hours a week these days? I maybe did 30 minutes of revision a week back when I was in Primary school, but that level of effort clearly isn’t going to fly with today’s kids. I look at some of their Math questions and I already have to do more than 2 hours of learning today to understand how to draw some of the models.
It’s a delicate dance – putting just enough pressure for them to work hard while assuring them that grades aren’t everything, and that we would love them no matter what.
During a particularly stressful afternoon of exam prep where Tru was struggling with his Math paper, he quietly told me that he already knew he wouldn’t be as successful as Kirsten or Finn when he grew up. “K is good at exams and Finn is super smart, he’s always getting full marks,” he said, looking at the unreasonably difficult Math question in front of him.
“Hey, stop with the Math for a moment and listen to mom.” He fiddled with his pen without looking up. “I won’t say this often but here’s where I tell you that exams are overrated and even if you fail all your papers from now till eternity, you’re going to be ok. You’re going to be more than ok because God made you special. You’re smarter and wittier and more talented than I was as a kid and I’m actually excited to see all the amazing things you’re going to do when you grow up. One day, you’ll realise that all of this won’t matter, you’ll see.”
“If it won’t matter, then why do I still have to do it now? I can just play computer games if I want to be a pro gamer next time.”
“That’s a fair question. It’s about giving yourself options in life and having a well-rounded education gives you options. It’s about overcoming challenges and learning the value of hard work and developing some grit in the face of adversity. It’s about training your brain; figuring out what you’re good at, and working extra hard at the parts that are difficult. At this point, it’s your job to try to nail these Math questions and learn Chinese words and memorise scientific things. I know it’s hard but you just need to try.”
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Today, I get to tell them that they’ve done a good job making it through exam season and they’re going to be ok no matter what. We’ll figure it out together after the results are out but first, we party.
