motivation, tests, and memorization

Remember how I failed my German driving test? Well on Tuesday, I have to give it another try. We have 60 different practice tests sitting on the table just waiting to be completed and studied. I absolutely, under no circumstances want to have to take this test a third time, which means on Tuesday I need to pass.

Now, given the fact that I don't drive much at all here in Germany because my daily life encompasses a  school, grocery store, and gym that are all within a very short distance from our apartment, I know that passing this test is just a matter of getting it done. For all intensive purposes I just need to memorize the answers to the questions and regurgitate them during the exam. Growing up, this was exactly how I learned. I am really good at memorizing and was always able to perform well on test day. The problem was...if you asked me about the information a few weeks..no, even a few days later,  I would probably not remember. I went through most of my schooling with this process of learning and realized too late in life that getting good grades was not equivalent with actually learning. Recently, I was at home and I came across some work I had done in high school and some papers I had written. I had absolutely no recollection of ever completing them or the information they pertained to! Jeez! I was pretty impressed with my writing skills--even back then, yet I had no connection to what I had learned at the time.

That is not good.

You would think that I would be pumped about the opportunity to demonstrate knowledge that does not require me to analyze, rethink, apply, synthesize, and masticate knowledge in order to formulate my own ideas and perspectives, like all the assignments I have been working on for my doctoral courses, but in recent years, I have completely changed my attitude regarding what it means to truly learn.

I hate that I missed out on so much authentic learning because I was complacent with just memorizing information in order to spit it back to the teacher and get the A's I so badly coveted. Now, I am not saying I don't still enjoy getting A's, quite the contrary, it is what I expect from myself, but the A's I earn now are worth a lot more to me because they are accompanied by a deeper understanding of what I am learning about. I care about the themes, topics, and discoveries that I make. I seek out additional information, and I am constantly driven to learn more. I know that everything I learn will have an impact on the person that I am and the super teacher that I am still working on becoming.

I no longer want to learn disconnected facts.

I am no longer happy to know a piece of information without having a solid understanding of the how and why.

I feel like memorizing robs me of true awareness and conern for what goes on in the world.

Because of this, I am absolutely, 100% unmotivated to study for this stinkin' driving test.When I leave the test, I will forget the answers and it will in no way make me a better or safer driver. This exercise does not have any meaning to me, therefore I am simply uninterested!

So, rather than just complaining, which makes for a Debbie Downer blog post, I am going to take this as a learning experience that helps me to connect with students and become a better teacher. I went through 13 years of schooling, succeeding and doing exceptionally well. I got mostly A's and I was number 7 in my graduating class of about 150 students. In spite of that, sometimes I feel like in the grand scheme of things I am not that smart.

I was just good at school.

I don't want my students to only be good at school. I want them to be good at learning and good at life. I want them to be invested and invigorated by learning and all the prospects life has to offer. Some students that are not "good at school" have a lot of perspective, knowledge, and experience that makes them smarter than I will ever be, so I hope to foster that rather than letting them feel like failures for not acing every test or being at "grade level" or beyond.

Getting all the correct answers on a multiple choice test does not make you smart.

I will keep this in mind as I continue in my career as a teacher, crafting assignments and learning tasks that reflect thinking and learning rather than memorizing. If students repeat back exactly what I have said, I will consider myself a failure because I want to encourage them to do their own thinking and formulate their own convictions. 

Maybe this is all just a huge pep talk for myself so that if I do fail again, I won't feel as defeated, but for me, learning has gone so far beyond memorizing that I feel like I won't beat myself up. Real life is not multiple choice and I think that is really important to keep in mind when this kind of testing is becoming more and more prevalent in the lives of students.