The school that plays everything in May teaches students to live to the last minute

Every year, the same scene: concentrated tests, chased questions, students in apnea, families in alarm, teachers under pressure. A tired liturgy that transforms the time of synthesis into a frantic race towards the last vote.

May arrives punctually and predictably, yet every time it takes the school world by surprise. The weeks are filled with written tests, questions, make-ups, make-up questions, supplementary tests, last chances, final appeals; then the very last question on everything is inevitable. In a few days what could have found space in the previous months is concentrated, and the result is known: strategic absences, anxiety, tensions, continuous negotiations, students who calculate, families who protest, teachers who chase. Yet, in high schools, especially where the year is divided into quarters and five-month terms, from January to June there is a long, broad period of time suitable for building a solid, structured and planned evaluation path. Five months is not a short interval, so much so that in addition to the initial organization, there is also space to reprogram, recalibrate and replan in light of trips, strikes, various setbacks. Nonetheless, it often happens that in mid-May a class still finds itself with the paucity of one or two assessments in some disciplines and the sudden and imperative need to complete the picture before the exams. It is at this point that testing becomes an emergency practice, first of all formal, because a minimum number of assessments are needed, and secondly substantial, because it takes on an excessive, all-encompassing emotional and didactic relevance.

The question, then, is simple: what is the point of arriving at May 15th with an insufficient number of elements and expecting to quickly reconstruct what was not collected before? An effective evaluation needs time, variety, continuity, and certainly does not arise from the final accumulation, nor does a final super-test “on everything” have the capacity to be an element of synthesis. The summary will be the one that the teacher, during the scrutiny, will create by critically reviewing all the assessments collected, the route and the personal logbook. Adopting this perspective, it is clear that more evaluations constitute a richer background to reflect on.

How to do it, though? By organizing orderly, distributed work that is also readable for students: three or four assessments by mid-April, in many disciplines, are a possible goal, starting in January. Organization is required, of course; we need a clear overview, a sensible calendar, real collaboration between colleagues, shared planning between students and teachers that is a common element in everyone’s planning. Arriving in mid-April with an already consistent, even sufficient framework of evaluations, would greatly change the perspective of the last period, starting with the serenity of the teachers, who would no longer be chasing the regularity of the school year. The last month could be dedicated to a final test, to a targeted recovery, to an in-depth study, to a further check if there were any need, and – let’s be clear – not only for those who are in difficulty. Even students and families, with a gradually composed picture, would have a clearer perception of the situation, without focusing everything on the last few days. The problem undoubtedly concerns the quantity of tests in the last month, but more broadly it affects the cultural message that the school transmits, because if everything is concentrated in the end, students learn that the path counts less than the last performance, that the school year is a game decided in the last minutes, that strategy can become more important than studying. Being absent on the right day, choosing which subject to sacrifice, asking to move, looking for the favorable question, avoiding the unfavorable one: these are scenarios that are repeated every year, every May, complete with preview December, small, but equal. Panic, unrest and tension are therefore predictable responses to a system that in May creates scarcity, pressure and competition for every available space.

It is necessary here and now to free ourselves from a misunderstanding: the latest evaluation is no more valid than the previous ones, because it does not possess, simply because it is close to the ballots, a superior truth, and it cannot become the only tribunal of the year. The final evaluation arises from a plurality of elements, from the composite picture made up of progress, difficulties, continuity, commitment, skills achieved, outcomes observed over time. Then there is another idea to correct: school doesn’t “end in June”, in June a year ends, you promote, you fail, you suspend judgment, you assign tasks, you say goodbye to the classes. But making students believe that the world ends in June means fueling a dramatic and distorted conception of school time, which will resume in September from the point where everything stopped twelve weeks earlier, subject by subject. Continuity is a word used a lot in schools, often evoked in documents, in colleges, in projects: in May, however, it is promptly forgotten and the anxiety of the final squeeze prevails. Thus, every stage tells the school something about itself: the fatigue of the teachers, the fragility of the students, the anxiety of the families, the difficulty of keeping learning and evaluation together. Let’s try to take advantage of these recurring situations, considering that the rush at the end of the year is not a natural law, but often the product of weak planning.