Saturday, August 15, 2015

academic ˌ/akəˈdemik/

One of my former writing students, Arrawyn, once said to me, in regards to her grade eight exams: “They’re not testing my skills or knowledge, you know. They’re only testing my memory.”

“Worse,” said I. “They’re only testing your short-term memory. You’ll soon forget most or all of it. But at least you’re exercising your brain, which is useful.”

1 comment:

Li said...

Hmmm.I dunno, a lot of the exams I took certainly relied on memory, yet I often employed reasoning skills to weed out possibly incorrect answers and practiced time management skills by skimming and answering the questions I knew first. Kids insist that much of their education is useless, but they don't realize how much they learn and how it will come into play later in life.

But then. that's part of being a kid. :)