Advanced Procrastination

This NYTimes Article resurfaced horrible memories of my high school Advanced Placement exams. As mentioned in the article, AP Biology, in particular, emphasized a student's ability to cram thousands of terms, diagrams, and theories learned throughout a school year (or within a 1000+ page prep book) for one 3 hour test. And then, imagine taking 5 AP classes concurrently!

The purpose of an AP test is to challenge and prepare high school kids for college-level coursework. Ironically, I think in this aspect, the AP exams are quite accurate. College, for many, consists of attending lectures half-awake (or non-present), and then memorizing a semester's worth of textbook material within a couple days before an exam (or stealing/paying for another's class notes and outlines). There's the occasional quiz and team projects, but the majority of a class's grade is dependent upon these mid/final exams (in international universities, it is much more common for class grades to simply consist of one or two exams).

The unfortunate consequence is that we usually forget most of what me learn after a summer of traveling or working. Why else do employers who hire new college graduates don't necessarily care about your specific major or what you learned. It is much more important for students to develop critical thinking, intellectual curiosity, soft skills, and the ability to learn.

Many universities do train and prepare students holistically, but our public schools still reinforce test-driven results through memorization and regurgitation. The CollegeBoard recognizes the trade-off and is in the process of reforming the AP Bio test to focus more on high-level conceptual and analytical processes. Memorization and productivity will not lead to a successful future for our students and country. Instead, we need to develop innovators and risk-takers, who are not afraid, but rather inspired, to create experiments, note failures, and continuously improve - not for the sake of grades or a piece of paper, but for humanity's sake.