PASSING THE EXAMINATION.
The formal examination of teachers is a necessary evil. It is one of
the ways of eliminating the incompetent. Examinations are necessary.
On the other hand, they sometimes license those who are utterly
incompetent and cut out those who would teach good schools. Taking the
examination, all in all, it is helpful. By eliminating the bad features
and encouraging the good they may be made better still.
Passing the examination is an ordeal that confronts most young teachers
and often older ones. We all feel better after it is over. Many of our
leaders in education, university professors, normal school teachers,
specialists and heads of departments along with many superintendents
would hesitate to stake their reputation as a teacher or educator upon
the answers to ten questions from each of ten subjects, these subjects
to be prepared and the answers graded by “the other fellow.” Yet this
is the ordeal to be passed by most young teachers. Is it any wonder
they dread it?
Every thinking man will concede that the usual examination does not
test the applicant’s ability to teach. The answers to a series of
questions will not do this thoroughly. A better and more sensible test
would be to have the applicant prepare a list of questions to test a
class that has just completed a given division of a subject. If the
teaching ability of some superintendents and examining boards were to
be tested by the lists of questions sometimes asked of teachers they
would be refused a third-grade license. The lists show quite evidently
that they were hurriedly made with little thought of testing the
applicant’s teaching ability. It is also true that the examination is
not even a good test of the applicant’s knowledge of the subject. The
real intelligence shown in the answers, the arrangement and scholarship
and neatness and accuracy are the essential things. Nothing can be more
ridiculous than a little two-by-four examiner or superintendent making
a list of questions, many of them narrow and indefinite, and then that
these same questions must be answered in certain specific words to make
grades on them. One examiner recently asked: “What did Washington do
before he crossed the Delaware?” Well, he did many things. But if the
applicant did not state that “he divided his army into three divisions,
etc.,” he missed the question intended by the examiner, and lost ten
per cent on that question. Examinations based upon such questions
are as much a farce as the method of holding a two weeks’ institute
and follow it by an examination based upon the subjects discussed
during the time. The whole time and energy of the teachers is spent in
cramming for the examination.
If an examination is to be a fair and reasonable one, the best
preparation for it is an intensive study of the subject upon which
you are to be examined. Do not study the subject with the thought of
examination uppermost in your mind. Study it with a view to mastering
and understanding it. Let the thought of what questions may be asked
on examination go. If you master the subject, all legitimate questions
asked on examination will be easily answered. The hard examination
to you is an examination in which you do not know how to answer the
questions. If you have mastered the subject you will very probably
know the answers to most of the reasonable questions asked. Cramming
for examination is usually time wasted. To study and cram on question
books and old lists of examination questions is time thrown away. Get
your text-book and try to master the principles and divisions of the
subjects, and your time is well spent.
If possible, be in good physical condition on the day of examination.
This counts for much. Some teachers overwork themselves preparing for
examination. They become nervous and do not sleep well. This leaves
them without reserve force and in poor physical condition when the
time comes. Other teachers work late the night before examination
and sleep little, often getting up early to study just before going
to examination. I have seen them bring a book in one hand glancing
at it to refresh their mind in the hall as they were passing to the
examination room. This anxiety saps their nerve force and leaves
them in no mental state for a strenuous day’s work. If early in the
examination they find something difficult to them they go to pieces and
do not recover during the day. Leave off both study and review. Do this
for at least twenty-four hours before time for examination. Keep your
mind from dwelling upon the examination. Take plenty of exercise and if
you find time hanging heavy, read some good story. Retire at your usual
time the night before examination and sleep your usual number of hours.
Get to the place of examination in time to have a half hour or more to
get familiar with the strange surroundings and to talk with teachers
before the examination is called. Nothing relieves one’s anxiety more.
Practice writing a few minutes before the actual work begins. This
makes your hand steady, and you are pleased with your first work. It
always pays you to be on time or ahead of time on examination day.
Go to the examination room prepared for work. Have either a good
fountain pen or a good easy penholder with some extra pens and a bottle
of ink. It may be your superintendent demands some special kind of
paper or manuscript book. Get this before going to the examination
unless the superintendent supplies them. Have also a blank book and
pencil and a sharp knife or a pencil sharpener. In other words, go to
the examination prepared for work just as you would expect your pupils
to come to school on examination day.
Work carefully and persistently, and as rapidly as possible. Nothing
is more detrimental to good work than to feel that you are behind with
your subject. Do not rush, but try to complete each subject in time to
review your paper before time is called. Neatness, accurate spelling,
and careful, systematic arrangement of your work will make a good
impression always, and get the good will of the examiner. Slovenness
and careless arrangement will unconsciously prejudice the examiner
against you. Your thought and answers must be unusually strong if they
overcome the prejudice unconsciously caused by poor writing or poor
arrangement.
Let me emphasize again the importance of systematic arrangement of
work. Poor penmanship, if it is uniform and legible, may be overlooked
if the work is properly arranged. Paragraphing, punctuation and general
arrangement count more than all else in making a neat manuscript. I
used to read the manuscript of an author frequently. His writing,
considered by itself, was poor--extremely poor. It required practice
to learn to read it, but it was uniform. It all looked alike. His
punctuation and paragraphing was almost perfect. The general impression
was good, and when you once mastered his particular letter formation
and learned to distinguish his a’s, his o’s and a few others, his
manuscript was easily read. The mechanical side of your examination
manuscript, will, if properly cared for, balance many little flaws in
the answers themselves.
Read the questions carefully. Hasty reading of questions will account
for many mistakes. After having read the question take time to think
the answer. Then condense the answer as much as possible, and have
it complete and clear. Number your answers to correspond with the
questions, leaving one or two lines blank between the answers. If you
have doubts about the meaning of a question, express it in writing, and
answer it according to the interpretation you think most plausible. Do
not be long-winded or wordy in your answers. Be brief, be accurate, be
neat.
Try to complete each subject in time to go over it carefully. Correct
any mistakes you may find before handing in your paper. It will be time
well spent. Many little mistakes, simply little slips of the hand, will
occur when your mind is centered upon the thought to be expressed. If
any work or calculations are transferred from your scratch book to your
manuscript be sure it is copied correctly. Frequently mistakes are made
in copying, but the examiner cannot know this, and must grade you in
what you place on your manuscript. He grades upon the accuracy of the
work as he finds it.
Approached properly, the examination should lose many of its terrors
for young teachers.