thepancollective: less than great expectations

It is that time of year again when students' greatest hopes will have been fulfilled, or their most important dreams dashed. I’m referring to the results of the end-of-year exams for graduating high school students.

The Aruban system closely follows the Dutch system, and all the work you did before you reached the final year doesn’t matter, because only the results of the last year decide on whether you will leave the school with a diploma in your pocket or not.

This is also that time of year when there will be endless debates why the results are less than satisfactory. And make no mistake, this will happen again this year. There is endless blame to go around, the parents, the teachers and the students will all get their share by various pundits and experts.

Colegio_arubano The principal of the highest level of high school in Aruba and my alma mater (Colegio Arubano), Rector Kolfin, has posited that the level of Dutch (link in Papiamento) in the final exams (the language in which all final exams are taken) is to blame for a 50% graduation rate (this was better than last year, by the way). Colegio Arubano is also the primary school that feeds students in further university education.

Putting the mind-boggling fact aside that only half (HALF!) of the students are estimated to graduate, I’d like to explore this explanation further.

I find it pretty amazing that after at the very least ten years of having Dutch as a subject and/or teaching language a student can be caught by surprised by the Dutch language in his or her final year. Especially since students are provided with a Dutch dictionary at their exams. After ten years of studying this language students still get to say “Oops, damn, Dutch is hard?”. Well, wow. I’m sorry, but then I need to ask the teachers what in the hell are they doing in their classrooms, if this is a valid reason. I’m not saying that everybody has to get high grades for Dutch the subject. But it is surely in the teacher’s power, whatever subject he or she teaches, to prepare the student for what lies ahead in May. There are plenty of tools to use, such as exams from previous years to study at home, training sessions with the class, etc. And how can a student pass the previous grades of high school with Dutch as a subject (it is a mandatory subject) and then crash and burn in the final exam because of the language? I must also advice the school to look back at their entire curriculum and check if they’re not doing the students a disservice by making the language too easy in the non-exam years.

The fact is that legions of previous generations have gotten through these exams, so why is Dutch all of a sudden THE biggest issue?

I think that this downward spiral of exam results is not because the level of Dutch, or classrooms without air-conditioning, or boring teachers. I think it’s because the level what is demanded of a students keeps on lowering. We shouldn’t be explaining away a 50% graduation rate of Colegio Arubano, we should be asking ourselves why a 100% graduation rate is so impossible.

Image provided by Colegio Arubano's website.

Comments

From a teacher's perspective I feel your pain over the percentage of graduates. You have the reason right there, the watering down of the curriculum. All of a sudden it is politically correct to bring down the curriculum and not challenge students. Then when they become mediocre adults, society complains. Preparation for productive adulthood begins at birth not at the age of high graduation.

Posted by: Lor | June 23, 2006 at 11:26 AM