The day of the exam arrives and nerves creep in. Why? There could be many reasons. Some people think that the exam is worthless, because everything they have studied is forgotten sooner rather than later. Or it is worthless, because it is not possible to continue with the studies and obtain the longed-for degree without taking them.

As adult citizens, we have all “suffered” an education system that has sometimes been suffocating. Why don’t we take a look at the exam itself ?

Limiting creative capacity

According to Jesús Ibáñez , the exam reduces the imaginative and critical capacity of students, who must limit themselves to answering according to the catalogue of answers that has been provided to them in advance.

Let us recall the scene from the film Dead Poets Society (1989, Peter Weir) in which the teacher (played by Robin Williams) encourages his students to express their specific ways of walking against the martial, orthodox unison rhythm to which they were accustomed.

In the courtyard, instead of marching, following a single predetermined path, settling into a specific way of being, the students begin to express themselves more freely, avoiding restrictions, constraints and stereotypes. Let us remember that the word poetry comes from the Greek word poiesis , which means ‘creation’. The teacher’s ultimate goal (in the case of Dead Poets Society , Literature) is to fight against uniformity, against the homogenization of society that causes differential wealth to be assimilated by an imposed model.

As Ibáñez states in the cited work, “the exam makes them speak appropriately, marking the pace, in an orderly and disciplined manner.”

Are all exams the same?

There are many types of exams, from text comments to math problems. But are they all equally “uniform”? There are exam models that offer students the opportunity to answer in their own way. In fact, many teachers encourage their students to find other ways to express what they have learned.

However, the scope for creativity is small: the exam does not allow us to re-ask or reformulate the questions or generate new ones. These questions already have their solutions, and students simply have to find the correct option by following an instruction book almost to the letter.

Reflection, criticism and problematization are conspicuous by their absence in these models. And we must not forget that, not only in the educational field, problematizing – that is, questioning what is affirmed, the truths that are presented to us as such – is very important, because “it implies a fight against stupidity . ”

The antagonist of the exam: the conversation

In the face of the “prohibition of poetic use,” we can resort to a powerful antagonist of the examination: conversation. This is always open, useless a priori, like philosophy, which, as Castoriadis said , serves much more than the fact of serving a specific purpose (in the same sense as Nuccio Ordine ). In the words of Kant : conversation is not a means to … but an end in itself.

Without scripts or predetermined endings, in conversation the topics vary, emerge, transform… A conversation is like the dance of starlings, combining chaos and cosmos. There is no hierarchy. The conversationalist is not required to meet any requirements: he simply has to participate… if he wants to.

Unlike the exam, which is rather closed and authoritarian, the character of the conversation is open and democratic. And while, from the point of view of Logic, the exam operates with disjunctions (or): either it is one solution or another, that is, excluding options; the conversation does so with conjunctions (and), including: and this, and that, and who else?, and what else?

Practical applications in the classroom through a podcast

Should we keep or eliminate the exam? There is another option: turning the exam into a conversation. Despite its indefinite and open nature, is it possible to bring conversation into the classroom and turn it into an assessment tool?

One of the main advantages of implementing conversation is that it provides certain values ​​that are transversal to all subjects: respecting speaking turns, active listening, using language that is understandable by everyone, etc. Another point in its favour is that conversation, by not starting from a specific topic or having a final objective, encourages interdisciplinarity and reflects the interests of the students, who talk about what they want to talk about.

However, if we want to use conversation as an assessment tool, not only in subjects such as Oratory or Education in Civic and Ethical Values, we must establish some criteria, even at the risk of limiting its nature to some extent.

Let’s propose a model based on the podcast , from which we also take advantage of the opportunity to work on Information and Communication Technologies. The process would be as follows:

1. The teacher offers a list of topics (based on the content studied in the subject).
2. Working groups are formed, which choose one of the proposed topics.
3. Throughout the conversation (which will be recorded in podcast format), the chosen academic topic will be worked on, trying to explain it in a clear way and connecting it with other topics freely chosen by the students.

The evaluation criteria will include both transversal aspects (clarity in language, participation of all students) and academic aspects (explanation of the chosen topic). The different podcasts will be listened to in the classroom and will be self-evaluated (by the creators of the podcast) and co-evaluated (by the other groups of students), which will be weighted together with the teacher’s grade.

Thus, as some studies on the subject show, conversation used as an educational tool encourages much more active and creative participation from students.

Author Bio: Luis Angel Campillos Moron is Professor of Philosophy at the University of La Rioja