*EXAMINATION*
"Everybody is a Genius. But If You Judge a Fish by Its Ability to Climb a Tree, It Will Live Its Whole Life Believing that It is Stupid". ~ Albert Einstein
In a few days time it begins, yes, the great battle of the semester. The crowd gradually filling every reading spot in school sends the message loud and clear. It is the time for the dreaded " examination ".
It is that time to increase the number of sleepless nights coupled with large intake of sleep depraving beverages in a bid to salvage our grade points which might not make any point later in life.
It is no longer a hidden fact that these standardized tests called examination and the grades attached to it does not determine the fate of someone in life. I mean the best graduating medical student does not necessarily becomes the best doctor, neither does the best banking and finance student become the richest.
It is with a heavy heart I write this as it bleeds my heart to see many students spend hours of sleepless nights with the only aim of getting an " A" or a "B", without any plan to keep the knowledge for a long time. Sitting close to someone who has being trying to cram the 10 enzymes for De Novo synthesis of purine metabolism made me stare in pity at the large number of students trying to get up to that first class grade which doesn't give a first class ticket.
The society might want to stigmatize us with letters on our results and place the " A" scorers as the most intelligent and " D, E and F" scorers as those needing deliverance without even putting into fact that most of this information leave our heads as soon as we submit those scripts.
It is quite a pity that these examinations are scheduled not to test our intelligence but our memory. If you think a man with the ability to store loads of information and regurgitate it on an examination booklet is intelligent and more knowledgeable than a critical thinker then our educational system is really gone. How many times have we remembered an answer to a question just minutes after submitting our scripts only to get the results and see perhaps a "B", does it mean remembering the answer 5 minutes earlier and getting an "A" makes you more intelligent and better suited for the first class? Unfortunately in our society it does.
While I don't expect everyone to understand this message, I hope the people it is actually meant for get to see the reason in it and do not allow the society's stereotype stop us from seeing the genius in ourselves. I still advocate the need to be among the best but in the quest for that we should not forget the main purpose of us being in school which is to get an education.
Education has always been and will continue to be the training of the mind to think and not the regurgitation of facts and figures. Education is what remains with us when we are done with schooling. While there is beauty and a sense of achievement in getting this top scores, it should not blind our eyes to our personal dreams. It is a popular saying that " if you don't build your dreams , someone else will hire you to build their own.
I write to those struggling to keep up with societal demands, I write to those already keeping up with it. Our life doesn't stop or even start with the A, B or E on that result sheet or that 4.8, 3.5 or 3.0 we see on our transcript. It is time to build ourselves, it is time to move beyond those restraints, it is time to get up and chase our dreams.
It will be an error if we study for 4, 5 or 6 years and leave with only the knowledge of the course we studied. It is a waste of potential and time which may be really hard to come by again. What happened to the dreams, vision, the world changers and dream chasers. The next revolutionary group of people ready to shake the world. It is time to stand up , get up and change the status quo.
Permit me to drop my pen here, but before I go , let me leave you with a quote from a spoken word artiste ,Sule Breaks "whether 72 or 88, 44 or 68, we will not let an examination result decide our fate."


#Ifeanyi writes
#Peace
P/S : Suggestions , Corrections and Constructive criticism are welcomed.