Exams and the English mess

From the start I'll declare a personal involvement in the current mess-up over English marks. Bratus Major needed 4 A-C marks to take his courses at college and got 6; however he needed 2 of them to be in Maths and English. He got a D in English. Fortunately after consultation the college accepted him provided that the exam was remarked and if he still failed he'd take a remedial make-up exam at the college.

The big joke in this is exactly why the English pass was required given that he's pursuing a science course. I can understand the basic need to be able to spell and express oneself correctly, but the English exam doesn't just cover that.


When I took my GCSEs English was split into two - Language and Literature. If I recall correctly I achieved a C in the former and a D in the latter; mainly due to the type of literature we were forced to read. If I'd taken a combined exam I'd guess I'd have received a D grade. Do I seem inarticulate to you? Unable to express myself in the written form? According to my presumed grade I am.

A combined test by definition cannot differentiate between those who have a command of English and those who just don't like poetry, which was a fair percentage of the type of literature I was forced to read. If the need to possess good English skills is a requirement than this can be assessed by the school simply via an interview and a written introduction from the pupil. So why the demand for a particular grade?

Politics. The schools are rated by their English and Maths grades, the politicos are caving in to pressure from the media to elevate these two above all others and the schools are taking the load. It's not that I don't think these two disciplines aren't important, they are. It is that focus should be aimed at the exams themselves. If, as passed through the rumour mill, it is true that universities are complaining that students are approaching them with pass marks in these two subjects yet seem to possess little knowledge of them then that is the fault of the exam boards.

One could argue that the schools are failing to teach, but some pupils just won't be taught; not can't - won't. Unless they are taken into one-to-one study they won't pass and the schools simply don't have the funding to accomplish this. Yet at the same time the politicians and the media pile pressure upon them to somehow perform this task.

Given this failure I'll turn to the true purpose between the study of humanities at high school - it is not to educate; it is to integrate. It is to provide a shared social base that allows us to communicate smoothly and without misunderstanding between ourselves. The consequence of focussing on grades is what has resulted in the older generation shaking their heads when a member of the younger generation professes an ignorance of, say, Roger Daltry. It's not that they need to know who this person is more that this knowledge provides a link between the generations.

It is this that I think has led to the demand to teach the 'classics' Dickens, Shakespeare etc. so that we in future we all have that in common. That's fine except for two minor points - 1) None of these works were written for children or young adults and 2) How many people read them for pleasure?

You want a shared base get them to read the Harry Potter series; chances are they already have; that if they haven't they probably want to; they are written for children of this age, and that they contain enough subtext, foreshadowing, and 'classic' storylines that they'd make excellent literary exemplars. The only reason Dickens and Shakespeare crop up is because that's what they were forced to read at school.

Before any says "But wait shouldn't they be reading these to provide the common ground you've been talking about?" the answer is no because we want the current school-age children to share that ground with the previous generation who weren't taught thus. All we'd be doing is pushing them to share with the current generation of politicians who'll be shuffling off the stage.

Teaching Dickens etc. to school-age children does not instil in them an appreciation for these works; in fact it's more likely to put them off them entirely - I still dislike poetry of the Wilfred Owen and "wandered lonely as a cloud" type due to being constantly forced to analyse and tear it apart as a student. Again the joke being these were never written for that age-group. Yes there's a need to study metaphor, but it's done in such a ham-fisted 'gunning for grades' manner that it makes a mockery of it all.

In short although we need to teach English there is no requirement to grade it formally. Dropping this will mean a less regimented approach with the teachers being able to fulfil the hidden requirements of this course, integration, by simply teaching them what they know about English rather than what some Oxbridge types think they should know.