By: Owen Angus-Yamada
Exams are one of the most stressful times for students because so much of a class rides on the result of one test. Students are constantly told that performances on these tests are crucial to getting accepted to graduate school or getting hired at a prestigious, high paying workplace. While good grades often lead to success, high marks shouldn’t necessarily be the highest priority for students. When did we start going to school to perform well instead of to learn?
Now, before you say, “Performing well on a test reflects your knowledge of a subject, idiot,” ask yourself how much you remember from last semester’s classes. For the majority of people, I can almost guarantee that all those carefully crafted notes and hours of practice problems have lead to little or no long term retention. We can’t remember because we were too focused on our grade outcomes. We study for what’s going to be tested, not to develop our understanding of the subject.
Some of us even go out of our way to take “bird courses” that will result in an easy A to add to our transcript. We forget that we’re here to learn about what we want to spend our lives doing.
Much of McMaster’s priority, unfortunately, seems to be on this short-term performance rather than on ways to encourage long-term retention. While extending the library hours during exam periods is nice and the fall reading week helps to break the material up a bit, these don’t add enough to remembering the course material once you’re done.
When it comes to aiding students with depression, anxiety and stress brought on by exams and marks, McMaster offers support in the forms of counselling and even visits from friendly therapy dogs, but these are short-term solutions that mask the larger issue.
They do not deal with the issue that these negative emotions are brought on university’s heavy emphasis on performance culture rather than being a learning environment.
When stress and anxiety kick in this exam season, you should take a look in the mirror and ask how important performing well on these exams actually is. Not everything rides on a single outcome.
There also seems to be hesitancy to use the beneficial parts of some classes in more traditional courses. Solutions like placing less emphasis on exams and shifting the weight to more constant assessments, exploring blended learning a bit more and reducing lectures in favour of different types of learning are all possible in most courses.
I am also a believer in the effectiveness of pass or fail classes. It takes the ideas of marks completely out of the picture to redirect students’ focus on content understanding and retention. These might be difficult and require more effort from professors, but should be better for students’ learning, development and long-term performance.
With these suggestions and how your courses may currently be, the end-goal of learning should always be the primary objective with your grades being secondary. However, this involves not only increasing long-term retention, but not worrying too much about short-term results.
Learning and development happens only after countless failed attempts so we shouldn’t be afraid to fail. Failure should be the goal in every classroom. Instead of bell curving tests and handing out bonus marks, professors should push every student outside their intellectual comfort zone in the hopes they fail.
If you truly enjoy doing something, it doesn’t matter if you fail as long as you improve. If you’re not passionate about what you’re studying, your goal should still be constant improvement.
When stress and anxiety kick in this exam season, you should take a look in the mirror and ask how important performing well on these exams actually is. Not everything rides on a single outcome.
Try your best, but don’t be afraid to fail as long as you continue to learn from the experience. Marks do not define you.
By: Ivan Kovalev
Popular discussions about technology include the importance for students who want to succeed in school to own a cell phone and laptop, and the resistance from some professors in allowing students to use their devices in-class. Since education and the workplace are increasingly becoming more paper-free environments, it is in the community’s best interest to adapt and make sure every student is able to use a personal electronic device.
It also seems to be the main method of communication for most users. College statistics from 2012 state that 95 per cent of students carry their phones to class, 92 per cent of students use their phones during class and 10 per cent bring their phones to exams. It is fair to conclude that almost everybody looks at a screen at least once a day. With everything a smartphone can offer like reminders, schedules, business calls, calculators and e-mails, it is not hard to identify the pros of phone usage during school hours. This is in addition to the benefits students can get from spending time on their computers and laptops.
The obstacle for students to procrastinate or not pay attention to their academics is always there, but it is the self-control that one must conquer to continue with their homework.
Technology plays a key role in safety and protocol regulations. In case of an emergency, anyone is just three digits away from contacting emergency medical services for assistance.
Even though there are many beneficial outcomes that are produced from technology, the main con of the distracting nature of technology is a strong one. The obstacle for students to procrastinate or not pay attention to their academics is always there, but it is the self-control that one must conquer to continue with their homework.
You could argue that phones and laptops should be banned from schools, but that just limits any user in regards of communication. While it can be a distraction in the classroom, the accessibility for those that are willing to use it to complement their in-class learning is simply too high to ignore.
Students elected Chukky Ibe for McMaster Students Union president and one of his promises caught the public’s attention the most. He promised for better Wi-Fi all around campus for all; something no other candidate this year placed any emphasis on. Internet access seems to be the number one priority. This is no surprise as it is an issue that can affect every student taking classes at McMaster.
You should care about the issue pertaining cell phones. Not because it may lower a student’s grade point average, but because they may become too attached to their technology. In today’s society, this is all you can expect from an average student at McMaster University as their phone is just another one of the mandatory tools their school supplies holds.
By: Stephen Clare
I’ve been to every lecture of GEOG 3EE3. I’ve taken good notes, reviewed them regularly, and understand the course material. I’ve even gone to the professor’s office hours a few times.
Please don’t tell the Geography department.
You see, I guess, technically speaking, I’m not actually in the course, per se. Like, it doesn’t show up on my timetable or SOLAR. I also haven’t done any assignments or written any tests. The registrar’s office wouldn’t be able to tell you where I learned about the physics of solar heating or the future of global oil demand.
I honestly tried to get into the course, but repeated emails and course waiver submissions fell on deaf ears (or rather, blind eyes) and the drop/add date passed without me being able to register. I was disappointed, because the course content is super relevant to my capital-F, capital-P “Future Plans.”
So, I thought, screw them. What are they going to do, drag me out of the lecture hall? I just took the class anyway.
I attended lectures, took good notes, and checked up on my fantasy hockey team while the professor gave advice about assignments and reminders of upcoming test dates. Instead of furiously copying the minutiae of each slide, I noted what interested me and ignored what I found boring. For homework I browsed articles on whatever concepts struck my fancy rather than writing lab reports and article summaries.
“Taking” GEOG 3EE3 has been positively relaxing.
It’s made me think about how often I’ve let going to school get in the way of me learning things. We’ve all been there, robotically putting pencil to paper and mirroring the writing on the chalkboard while our thoughts turned to the Leafs’ latest embarrassment or what exactly she meant by “see you later” (like “later tonight” later or just “see you around” later?). Some days you can fill a page of notes without even knowing what course you’re in.
That’s why it’s been so nice to learn for the sake of learning rather than learning for my degree. It’s a whole different mindset, like the difference between opening up a novel and opening up a textbook. These are the same classmates, the same powerpoint designs, the same sickly yellow glow barely illuminating the same grim lecture halls. It’s just that I love this room when I’m left to focus on the material, but resent it when learning carries the added pressure of knowing all-important marks are on the line.
Obviously there’s a big, scary system that needs us to do assignments and write tests. It’s a machine that eats transcripts and craps scholarships. And like all horrible, impersonal systems it makes us feel small and powerless.
But there’s joy and value in the learning itself. And at university, I’m surrounded by thousands of people that know a whole lot and do this weird thing where on a weekly basis they stand at the front of a room and just talk about what they know. It’s good to hear them talk. It’s good to learn from them.
Sometimes, it’s just good to know stuff.
By: Sally Musa
“[Colonialism] turns to the past of the oppressed people, and distorts, disfigures, and destroys it. This work of devaluing pre-colonial history takes on a dialectical significance today.” These words, written half a century ago by philosopher Frantz Fanon, are still relevant today. Colonialism is the vestige of European imperialism that imposes unbalanced power structures that favour colonists over other groups. As university students, our most common and intimate relationship with colonization is through our education. University education, as well as ideas of what constitutes higher education, has become a gear in the machinations of colonial practices.
We regularly witness colonialism in the content of our courses, in the manner and the setting in which courses are taught. At McMaster, a quick glance at the undergraduate calendar for programs like Art History, English or Sociology shows that only about 25% of those courses are concerned with non-European subjects. General or introductory courses are almost completely European in subject matter. Areas of study including the Humanities, Social Sciences and Business are used to critically examine the human condition. Through the omission of non-European groups, realities of racialized and marginalized groups have been shelved. To decolonize education would be to redefine what it means to be human.
The manner of discussion surrounding non-European people, ideas, and history is problematic. The “objective” discourse of these groups of people can reduce those very people to objects. Education systems place a specific group as dominant and normative, and all other groups become just that – the “other.”
The setting in most university classes can reaffirm the colonial foundations suspected of being taught. University classes are often structured to have a single teacher, with the complete lexicon of knowledge, surrounded by learners. The structure in itself reaffirms power hegemonies similar to that of a colonizing power towards a colony. The roles in the classroom are not interchangeable, and when a learner is unable to assume the role of a teacher it reduces classroom experiences to a single narrative. This narrowed view can diminishes a learner’s capacity for critical approaches to education.
The questions remains: how do we decolonize education? To clarify, decolonization here does not refer to the integration of different communities, whether African, Asian, Indigenous, etc. The tolerance of colonized people within a colonial system appears as progress, but it is merely a step in a circular path. Rather, decolonization involves shifting from a culture of denial to the creation of space for new philosophies and systems of knowledge. This can alter cultural perception and power relations in material ways. In Canada, the call for indigenous knowledge in education has been met with the establishment of Aboriginal Focus Schools. This school teaches skills and knowledge within the context of aboriginal cultural values.
I’ve heard many people use the phrases “decolonize your mind” or “decolonize your thoughts” and although I agree with the sentiment, it is only the first step. Recognizing the structure and implications of colonization on our education is a massive hurdle, but it is not the end of the path. To once again quote Frantz Fanon, “no phraseology can be a substitute for reality.” Decolonization is not a metaphor used for social justice or awareness. It is a tangible goal.
Since colonialism is foundational in institutions of higher education, it will persist if met with indifference. Thus, decolonization needs to be engaged directly and consciously. To combat colonialism in higher education, the voices of all groups must be brought into the discussion of course curricula and instruction. McMaster currently has programming in Indigenous Studies, Jewish Studies, Asian Studies and most recently, African and African Diaspora Studies. Having personally witnessed the growth of the African and African Diaspora Studies Program, I have an appreciation for the deliberate establishment of cornerstone programs. These areas of study address the longstanding gaps within university programming. Educational reform can only be the result of analysis, problem solving and discussion – so let’s continue the conversation.
This article was first published in Incite Magazine
