The other day I was just going through my son's exam papers and he was feeling bad on receiving an A grade inspite of preparing well for his Computer Science exam (Yes he's only in the third grade and they have Cse from grade 1)I went through his papers and felt it was a little unfair on him considering the actual knowledge he had.
Question: What is system software?
Expected Answer by teacher: A software which controls and manages all the activities of the computer system.
My son's answer: A software which sees to all the activities of a computer.
Question:Features of MS Windows?
(One of the expected features present in the text but not given in teachers notes):
It contains icons which help to do work easily.
My son's answer: There are icons in MS Windows.
While technically the teacher's expected answer might be perfect, expecting a third grade student to remember these terms seemed a little too much. And she had underlined all the above answers written by him and reduced his grade.
Somehow this seems to show the basic problem in our education system - learning by rote and answering in exact words.
Wouldn't it have been better if they had been given objective type questions and asked to pick out the right system software ? This would have shown if they have actually understood the concept rather than grading them based on their choice of words in theoretical answers. And isn't computer science all about practical knowledge? It isn't even given weightage here.
My son was feeling bad as he was not upto the standards of his fellow classmates with an A+ grade and I actually had to console him saying he was good enough. And to top it all the teacher who handed out his paper said this to him "I'm sorry Adarsh, you're getting only an A. "
Isn't appreciation of the child's effort more important than the grade.
My words provided him little comfort , wish the teacher had been a little more sensitive towards him. Can't blame them fully either as they seem to be under a lot of pressure from the school to produce 'results'. Hope teachers are trained to be more sensitive towards children and hope education is designed 'to learn' something new and not ' to study'
Question: What is system software?
Expected Answer by teacher: A software which controls and manages all the activities of the computer system.
My son's answer: A software which sees to all the activities of a computer.
Question:Features of MS Windows?
(One of the expected features present in the text but not given in teachers notes):
It contains icons which help to do work easily.
My son's answer: There are icons in MS Windows.
While technically the teacher's expected answer might be perfect, expecting a third grade student to remember these terms seemed a little too much. And she had underlined all the above answers written by him and reduced his grade.
Somehow this seems to show the basic problem in our education system - learning by rote and answering in exact words.
Wouldn't it have been better if they had been given objective type questions and asked to pick out the right system software ? This would have shown if they have actually understood the concept rather than grading them based on their choice of words in theoretical answers. And isn't computer science all about practical knowledge? It isn't even given weightage here.
My son was feeling bad as he was not upto the standards of his fellow classmates with an A+ grade and I actually had to console him saying he was good enough. And to top it all the teacher who handed out his paper said this to him "I'm sorry Adarsh, you're getting only an A. "
Isn't appreciation of the child's effort more important than the grade.
My words provided him little comfort , wish the teacher had been a little more sensitive towards him. Can't blame them fully either as they seem to be under a lot of pressure from the school to produce 'results'. Hope teachers are trained to be more sensitive towards children and hope education is designed 'to learn' something new and not ' to study'
