Mrs. Layla Charles Saad Discusses the Final Examinations

At this season, of this year and of every year, a wave of nervousness sweeps over the schools and over our homes, and terror creeps into the hearts of students... It is the time of the final examinations, and it was said of old: 'At the examination a man is honored or humbled.' This maxim has come to run upon our tongues, and so we hang a very great importance upon examinations, since upon their results our honor or our humiliation depends. Because of this importance, I wished to put some questions to one of the women in charge of our dear schools, Mrs. Layla Charles Saad, principal of the National College in Choueifat, that perhaps, after discussing the subject, we may be able to judge whether examinations are necessary or unnecessary.

Q — Do you believe, Mrs. Layla, that we could do away with examinations altogether, considering the uproar these examinations stir up every year, and the exhausting state of nerves that takes hold of students as a result of them?

A — In my view we cannot do away with examinations altogether, because examinations are, at the present time, the only means of judging a student's knowledge, of sifting students, and of estimating their capacities in the fairest way possible.

Q — Then you do not count daily work?

A — Naturally I do not count it beside the examination, because daily work may not give a true picture of the reality of a student's knowledge — the daily assignments, for instance, are very often not the fruit of the student's own effort.

Q — That is an important point. And what more of the merits of examinations?

A — The examination is likewise a mental stimulant for the pupil: it trains him to use the information he has gathered and to bind it together, and it also teaches him to think of subjects as a whole, not as scattered ideas.

Q — Of course examinations have many merits — no one denies this. But there are three kinds of examination: written, oral, and laboratory. On which of these examinations do you place the greatest weight?

A — Each of these three examinations completes the others, and all of them must be held in order to render a just verdict on a student's knowledge. The oral examination, for example, tests the pupil's quickness of mind, the strength of his personality, his fluency, and the excellence of his delivery.

Q — Whereas the written examination gives the pupil room for thought, reflection, and deliberation, and for gathering and setting out what he wishes to say in the best possible manner.

A — And the examiner himself, too, can prolong his consideration and scrutiny of the answers; and so his verdict on the student's knowledge comes nearer to truth and justice than the verdict of the oral examiner.

Q — And do not forget, Mrs. Layla, the value of neatness, order, and beauty of handwriting in the written examination — qualities which the Latin schools foster more than any others, so that their examination papers are generally a marvel of neatness and fine script; and the founding of this habit is very necessary for the lives of our students, over which muddle and disorder hold sway.

A — And therefore it has become obligatory, as I said, that we not content ourselves with a single examination; rather each examination should be the complement of the other.

Q — There remains the laboratory examination. Could it not be dispensed with?

A — No, for the laboratory examination is necessary because it is a means of making certain how far the student can apply his theories in practice, and how great is his manual skill.

Q — I suppose you refer by that to the vocational lessons — carpentry, smithing, agriculture, and so on...

A — I mean also the sciences of physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, and the like.

Q — And now, before entering into the very heart of the subject, let us pause

a moment and ask: when did examinations begin? In roughly what age? Can you tell us anything?

A — You may be surprised to learn that the idea of the examination goes back to 1115 B.C.; that was in China, for the selection of overseers for the public service.

Q — That is truly astonishing. But when did examinations begin in their present sense?

A — They began, I believe, in the West, in the universities of the Middle Ages; and the first records of school examinations as we understand them now are found at the University of Bologna, 1219...

Q — How, one wonders, do examinations now differ from those of the old ages?

A — Examinations were at first a matter of reciting information and facts. The modern methods, however, are a means of gauging the student's capacity and comprehension — provided that this knowledge bears the student's personal stamp.

Q — And so the modern tendency of the school examination lays the stress on the student's personality and his own opinion, whereas the old tendency depended more on memorizing and learning by rote. Now I have another question. What is your view of this nervousness that pursues students and their mothers alike at examination time; and of the fact that hanging so great an importance upon the examination very often leads students to neglect during the course of the year, and to excessive cramming at examination time? As you well know, matter that enters quickly is usually quick to evaporate from students' minds, and what a student studies in a short time he soon forgets. I think that if the teachers' attention were placed on daily work, or on weekly tests, the students' attention would turn to steadiness in study, instead of depending on examination time alone.

A — I admit that the examination, in its present state, does a great deal of harm; but we can avoid this harm if the examination is given the importance it is worth, without its being the sole means of judging a student's knowledge.

Q — And do not forget, either, the severe confusion that besets some students, and which puts their answers far from being a measure of their knowledge.

A — This supports what I said: that the examination, to be just, must be given the value it is worth.

Q — And what, in your view, is that value?

A — I believe the value of the final examination should equal one third of the results of the whole year: the first half-year, with its examination, counts a third, the second half a third, and the final examination a third; and thus we give the pupil a fair chance to show what he knows.

Q — You do not, then, approve of the Latin system, which gives the examination more than 50% of the final grade.

A — My frank belief is that the Latin system overrates the value of the examination, and this may do harm, for students very often idle the whole year through, and then, when examination time comes, throw themselves into exhausting study — and pass... It must be pointed out here that this opinion of mine springs from my personal experience, and there may be in it an unintended bias, due to my never having tried the Latin system in my working life.

Q — And which, in your view, better suits the nature of our students: the Latin system or the Anglo-Saxon?

A — Our students have grown used to adapting themselves to whatever system they follow. What we need is a comprehensive, unified national system, suited to the nature of our life and answering our needs — one that makes our students independent in personality, studying to gain knowledge, not merely to pass the examination. For knowledge is the end, and the examination is only a means to that end.

Q — And if a system of instruction were available to us that brought us to absolute knowledge without examination, should we adopt that system and dispense with examinations?

A — Of course; and that requires a social and cultural advancement of the people as a whole, its teachers and its students.

Q — Since the advanced West has not yet reached this ideal level you mention, it is idle to discuss it now in our country. Let us pass to another subject.... The examination, as I observe, is a necessity for students below university age; in the universities, however — and the American ones more than others — they sometimes substitute a full-length paper for the examination.

A — Yes, and that is because students at that stage have acquired self-reliance, and an awareness of where their interest lies and of the necessity of profiting from their years of study; so the student takes up scholarly research of his own accord, without a goad. But at the primary and secondary stages, the final examination is a necessity that cannot be dispensed with.