"It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Exam Week" really should be a song because, for middle and high school teachers and students, it can't be Christmas until midterm exams are over. To see some of my students blogs on the issue, click here.
It happens every year. A middle school student tells me that exams are unnecessary and don't tell you anything because they can't study for all their subjects at once. They are always very proud of their amazing argument, backed up with something their mom said about how they shouldn't be under so much pressure at their age. Much like the "When am I ever going to use this is life?" question, it doesn't actually matter what my answer is. They came in knowing that they were right and nothing will convince them otherwise. Since you read this blog, I will assume that you care what the answer is. Exams are about the pressure.
The initial learning process is a long and complicated brain experience. It involves categorizing new knowledge into categories you established from prior knowledge, blending the old information with the new to give it meaning, and recording that meaning in a biochemical process in your brain. Because the brain's real estate is limited, there is competition for what will remain and what gets tossed. Your brain simply must throw out some things, or you would waste valuable space on remembering what the people in your line at the grocery store last week were wearing. In the simplest of terms, your brain decides to keep the things you revisit and dump the things you don't. That's why songs stay in your mind. That's why review matters. It has even been theorized that one of the purposes of sleep is to give your brain time to decide what it should forget from that day without taking in new input in the process.
What does this have to do with pressure and exams?
First, you are obviously revisiting information that you learned earlier in the semester. This tells your brain that it should hold onto this information next time it is sorting out what you should forget. It tells your brain that this information is more important than the tweet your read yesterday and never looked at again. Second, the pressure of the exam schedule tells your brain that this matters enough to stress over. The brain isn't likely to drop those things you are stressed about when it goes through information triage. It is why you remember the fight you had with your friend long after you forgot the color of the carpet in the conference room. Emotion (even stress) causes your brain to record more permanently. The pressure increases the learning.
Another thing that exams teach you is the ability to plan for the long term and short term simultaneously. This is an important adult life skill. Your parents prepare for the short term (packing lunches for tomorrow) and the medium term (what groceries to buy for this week) and the long term (how much money to budget for food). They do it all the time. They didn't develop the ability to do this the day they turned 21. It is a skill that is built. One of the ways you build this skill is to balance studying for exams (a couple of weeks away) with doing the homework that is due tomorrow. This will keep you from living your life by the "tyranny of the urgent" principle. Many adults live anxious lives because they are only doing what has to be done RIGHT NOW. If you have developed the skill of planning ahead, your life will be less stressful.
As I began writing this, I had a strange memory of an episode of Boy Meets World. I know that's weird, but stick with me. Mr. Feeny had made a very difficult exam schedule (because, in TV world, the history teacher is apparently able to make the exam schedule). Anyway, the students revolted against this unfair schedule. They vandalized his house, etc. In the scene below, Corey goes to talk to him about the vandalism and to request that he make things easier. As always, Mr. Feeny's wisdom came through, so I will end with it.
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