Examination As a Neurotic Factor in the Student-Teacher Relationship

Traditional examinations are a mythologized anachronism that put real stress on the student-teacher equation.

If you ask any student about the usefulness of this method of evaluation, the responses are overwhelmingly baffling and ambiguous, mediated by the urge to finish their classes with a degree permitting them to go into a professional practice, or they have a sense of futility in their answers because, they say, “in any case, nothing will change.” Many times we see a widespread lack of interest, a reluctance and an apathy; such is the lack of enthusiasm to improve matters that one has the impression of being in a process whereby the parties are “not involving themselves emotionally” in a shared task, neither the students nor the teachers. Sometimes this may be seen as delayed harvest from seeds sown at the pre-school or secondary school level. The teachers themselves seem so overwhelmed by a task that is becoming more and more simply the routine repetition of the same programs, each time less participatory, less investigative.

For example, many students say: “teachers make use of examinations as a threat, if they did not have the tests in their hands as a weapon, they would be unable to make us learn anything. They need to repress us”.

When asked their opinion on exams, teachers respond that “without exams we could never know if the students are learning what we try to teach them. It is not the best, but it’s all that we have.” Other teachers say: “exams are the way to protect the public against an incompetent professional.” A professional who had graduated some years ago from the University and currently teaches told me: “In my student days the tests were much more difficult. We had a professor of anatomy who examined us by throwing a hand or foot bone in the air. We had to quickly tell which limb it belonged to, if it was right or left. If someone was myopic, obviously he could not pass. Nor could you if you had no aptitude for drawing. We used to study until dawn. Without the examinations, students would not open a book and hardly worry about anything other than politics.” He seemed to repeat, without realizing it, the educational philosophy of that professor of anatomy.

Unfortunately, we have not yet found — in the midst of this crisis — the ideal examination method, and although the protests against this rite of passage are strong, both on the part of teachers and students, the extreme shortage of professionals, who are both experienced and willing to dedicate themselves exclusively to teaching, does not permit the establishment of a system of ongoing evaluations of the programs pursued by each student during each of their courses and throughout their entire educational career.

In conclusion, the exam experience impacts the student-teacher dyad such that it becomes a sterilizing factor for teaching as the years go on. The persistence of these rites generates situations where what is really important has been displaced by the insignificant, that is to say the need to be approved, to “pass,” and to demonstrate proficiency. The important thing that is lost is the possibility of using this time to obtain or impart more meaningful knowledge. It squanders the opportunity to learn alongside the students. An anachronistic, mythical model is maintained. These mortifying rites of passage can be substituted with systems of continual evaluation, mutual investigation, and more thoughtful assessments, leading to a subliminal identification with and a stimulation of a love for knowledge which is the most useful model for the future professional emerging from the classrooms. I would say that next to the transmission of knowledge the most important thing is the transmission of attitude.

The transmission of a hedonistic model, where the enjoyment of learning, knowledge and the pleasure of culture is not divorced from life. We need an attitude that leads to periodic evaluations, the reformation of knowledge, and one that is based on a desire to learn for the present and for the future.