What If We Had Exams Everyday? Well, Everyone Would Be Better Off.
We all seem to agree that consistency is one of the most important habits to develop in order to achieve something and/or be happy in life. So isn’t this a habit we should be trying to foster in our students?
If so, they should be having an exam everyday, not once a year or once a semester.
(but this is not the type of exams you’re thinking about…)
Cristiano Ronaldo sits these exams everyday.
Oprah Winfrey sits these exams everyday.
I sit these exam everyday, too.
Not that I’m comparing myself to these two…there isn’t much of a competition there, I win of course *ahem*…moving on.
.
.
.
“Person X is so amazing and wonderful and he deserves to be because he puts in Y hours of work each day and has been doing so for Z years.”
We’ve all heard this, we’ve all said it about someone.
That person has achieved so much, or has improved his life in such a way, or has done whatever it may be that he decided to do, or be, because he put in work.
And he put in work DAILY.
It didn’t have to be huge mountain-moving amounts of work either, it just had to be one step more than the previous day.
This worked because -
if you take one step each day, over time you have reached a place you never thought you could reach…
…and you only thought you couldn’t reach it because you can’t see that place from a thousand steps away, but when you’re one step away, it is right in front of you.
Okay enough philosophical talk, you get my point.
Consistency & One Step = Awesome (The Magical Formula)
I have a friend who wanted to become a writer. He set himself a daily task of writing 5 pages a day.
Within the first year, he has written 5 books.
Each better than the previous.
Compare this to someone wanting to be a writer and locking himself in a secluded cabin in the woods and hoping to keep writing for a week, with little break, and ending up with amazing work.
He’ll burn out writing one book, let alone make it to his 5th, like my friend.
So, being consistent and taking one step more each day = awesome, as opposed to trying to take 2,000 steps in one small chunk of time.
The latter = our education system.
You Cannot Eat An Elephant All At Once
There is the concept that you cannot eat an elephant all at once. You have to take it a bite at a time.
And as Henry Ford said
“Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small pieces.”
This cabin-bound writer is not too dissimilar to the behaviours we get taught in school.
You have an exam at the end of this Term, it is worth 1,000,000% of your subject grade and you must pass it to find a job. Otherwise you will forever be alone, sad, and unemployed.
(not that dramatic, but hey, not far off either).
Students lock themselves in their own cabin and
cram
cram
cram
For an entire week, with little break, and then do nothing thereafter until the Educator appears again with another exam date.
Compare This to Cristiano Ronaldo and Oprah Winfrey
(I’m not using these two people as examples to indicate that success is correlated with net worth — which the above two do quite well on — but I use them as relevant examples that everyone is familiar with).
Cristiano, arguably one of the greatest football/soccer players of our time. If not all-time.
He doesn’t just wait until one week before the World Cup Final to start training like a maniac, doing anything and everything he possibly can.
Doing so is likely to get him injured (and ridiculously tired).
He sets himself a 3 hour window each day where he practices and aims to take one step further in whichever aspect of his game he chooses — technique, mobility, fitness, passing, shooting, whatever…
Oprah, arguably one of the greatest TV hosts of our time. If not all-time.
She doesn’t wait the night before her big interview to start practicing all the important things to get her prepared for the following day.
She spends her mornings, every morning, practicing
(she used to during her career anyway, however I’m sure she still does).
And taking that one step further — be it reading something relevant to her work, meditating to improve her clarity, practicing gratitude to make her a better listener, and the list goes on…
All geniuses maintain and commit to incredible levels of consistency, the link above shows you the daily routines of some of the most creative minds the world has seen.
So, we should have an exam everyday (HOORAY!!)
We should be teaching students to embrace consistency and commit to taking an exam each day.
Imagine for a moment.
If each day, students committed to taking this exam, whatever that exam may be depends on them. An exam where they assessed themselves.
And an exam they’re more likely to pass, than fail. It is merely just one extra step.
(whatever that step may be, again, is their choice).
What would the outcome be?
Well,
It is hard to see it not being a positive one…
- Here is my own example -
When we first started K2 Audiovisual.
I decided I would reach out and call 10 people each day and send 10 emails.
This is so that I could introduce myself to potential clients, tell them about what we do, how we aim to help improve education via tech, and develop a great relationship.
Each day I would then try to improve the calls, or emails, one step at a time by:
- Reading up or watching relevant training videos
- Finding ways to reach more relevant people
- Getting guidance from someone with more experience
- Whatever it may be
The first day I picked up the phone, I was so nervous, even though I knew I was only going to benefit the person at the other end…
…I sweat and stumbled my way through each call and wrote emails that are now cringe-worthy.
The first year, we struggled to stay afloat as a business, and rode the emotional and financial cycle a business goes through.
Nearly 4 years on, today, we are the largest provider in the state.
And have changed the way technology will be incorporated in new schools in WA, and been responsible for the video communications for several mining giants.
This is not to boast.
But from the position we were standing at on that first day, I could have never seen today as the destination. I didn’t know it existed, or was possible.
And if someone told me the ride we would have had to take,
I may have said “no thanks, I’ll just step off.”
BUT
Passing that exam each day wasn’t really that hard.
I passed it today, and the exam was magnitudes harder than it was on that first day. But it was easy, because I had done all that walking.
Most people (and students included) veer away from committing to consistency because it seems like a lot of work. And we teach them in a way that makes it seem like even more work.
If you are looking at reaching some huge destination, then yes looking out at it may seem like you are trying to climb Mount Everest.
It may seem daunting.
It may seem terrifying.
It may seem like too big a sacrifice.
It may stop us in our tracks.
It is easier to wait until we really need to.
Like a end of term exam…
…but instead, if you just have to pass an exam you are most likely to pass anyway, as it is just one step more, and you are the one marking yourself.
Is it really that hard?
Or is it harder to wait until you have no choice but to take 2,000 steps instead of just one more?
