The Teaching of History Part 7

VII

EXAMINATIONS AS TESTS OF PROGRESS

_The examination should determine how much the student has progressed_

The time is coming, if it is not already here, when the public will cry out against the nervous fear and sleepless nights with which their children approach the semi-annual torture of our inquisitorial examinations. That reasonable examinations are essential and beneficial is hardly open to question. That a student should be expected correctly to answer a fair percentage of reasonable questions on work which has been properly taught is not a cause of complaint from anyone. But that children should be frightened into a state of nervous terror by the bugaboo of an impending examination, and then be forced to attempt a series of conundrums propounded by a teacher who takes pride in maintaining a high percentage of failures, is indefensible. An examination should not be conducted with the primary object of making it a thing to be feared.

However desirable such a questionable a.s.set may seem to certain college professors, it is a serious fault in a high school teacher to have any considerable number of normal children fail. The ambition of the good instructor is to give an examination which shall at once be thorough, reasonable, and intelligently directed toward finding what the student has really learned. His purpose is to test accurately the various abilities which he has endeavored to encourage in the student during his course. He wishes to ascertain how much the student has really progressed.

_Specific suggestions on formulating questions_

In order to do this the examination must be on the really material considerations of the history. Questions on unimportant details should be omitted. The student should not be expected to burden his memory with the limitless ma.s.s of petty isolated facts contained in the average history text. The questions should be on considerations that have been carefully discussed, and not on facts that have received but cursory attention.

The examination should not require too much time for writing. The several hours' continuous nervous tension sometimes exacted by too ambitious teachers does the average child more harm than the examination can possibly do him good.

The examination should consist of questions that will jointly or severally test the student's powers of description, generalization, and a.n.a.lysis. They should test his knowledge of the sequence of events, his ability to use a library or a map, his knowledge of the various phases and the various periods of the history studied. In every examination there should be at least one question dealing with the time and the order of events, one each on the geographical, political, and social history, one that is a.n.a.lytical, one that requires generalization, one that will test his knowledge of the library, and one that will test his powers of description. It is not necessary to limit the questions to the customary number of ten. It is frequently advisable to give a cla.s.s some degree of choice in the selection of their questions by requiring any ten out of a larger number asked. Certainly such a plan gives the student a more favorable opportunity to demonstrate his ability without in the least diminishing the value of the examination.

Examination questions, like all other questions, should be definite, clean-cut, and reasonable. If possible, each student should be supplied with a copy, instead of having the set written on the board. They should cover only those portions of the subject that have been properly taught. The teacher should not expect the boy who has kept no useful notes, whose library work has been haphazard, and whose methods of study have not been supervised, to perform at examination time the miracle of accurately remembering what he has never been properly taught.