Good learning and personal experience to share. Especially
to all those Animated parents while supporting the kids in their studies.
Ananya is in class 9 and the annual exams got over in Mid
Feb’19 and marks was shared this week, also the class 10 started this week.
Till class 8, I used to teach all subjects except French and
give her weekly test and evaluate the test. During exam times it will be
stressful for both Me and Ananya as she has to answer or solve the questions
picked at random. Once the exam time table is out we both will chart out plans
to cover portions and after exam on the same day walk through of question paper
to evaluate her performance and provide a rough marks.
All the above routine was followed in class 9 only for the
first month exam, later on from July 2018 all got vanished.I decided to take a
risk of not helping her in studies and told her she has to learn on her own,
evaluate and plan for exams on her own and can come to me for doubts after
exposing all options including Mr.Google.
Both Prathiba and Ananya was surprised by this move and
Prathiba would have requested several times to support her in preparation which
was gently declined by me.
During exam times I made a point not to know the time table
and all I will do is wish her All the best for the exam. No walk through of
question paper post exam.The risk is to not only to evaluate her independency
but to boost the morale and confidence.
Performance and outcome of subsequent 2 exams went down and the marks made a nose dive compared to her class 8. During every PT
meeting the teacher used to raise this and I never heeded those comments and
asked Ananya to improve.
It started to improve from Half yearly followed by pre
annual finally she exceeded her class 8 average marks in the annual exam.
During this week PT meeting I shared my plan with teacher in the absence of
Ananya and asked her feedback considering my plan. Not only she appreciated Ananya but I could see the surprise element
in her face.
This approach helped in many ways
- Provided confidence to Ananya
that she can stand on her legs
- Apart from Independency it
helped me to evaluate her based on the kind of questions / doubts she
raised.
- Doubts and questions
raised helped to understand her knowledge level, though marks made a dip
but the kind of questions she asked gave me a confidence that she will
soon reach where she belonged earlier. Since I strongly believe both knowledge
and marks need not be directly proportional.
My humble suggestion to all those enthusiastic and excited parents
is to give it a try and take a risk. Worth venturing this risk and definitely both
the kid and parents will feel accomplished at the end.
