They are not taught us, but dragged

The final essay was transferred to April, and it would be better to completely cancel. Why do you need a double exam

Since the 2014/15 academic year, the final essay serves as a admission to the exam. In this academic year, the pandemic made its amendments on the final tests: the essay was postponed from December to April. But graduates are not at all happy with such a turn of affairs.

The decision to introduce the final essay (IP) in the school on the basis of the presidential instruction to the Federal Assembly of December 27, 2013. In form, this is an exam in literature, but the law on education prohibits two exams on one subject. Therefore, he was declared a admission to the exam. But are there few final exams?

Here is the story of my friend teacher, Marina Valerievna (the name changed), who checked the final works of graduates at school:

- The final essay was invented primarily in order to teach graduates to think on their own and introduce them to reading books. Public figures and teachers often raised the question of books abandoned by students into a corner. And admission to the exam is the motivation to read.

In the first years, in the works of students, diversity was visible in some places. But then even a rare originality was completely replaced by clicked phrases. It turned out that on the basis of the same work, you can write, for example, three works. Pupils began to just memorize certain literary works. And the final essay turned into a test of the ability to train for the exam, instead of testing the knowledge of literature and the ability to correctly formulate your thoughts.

Why is such a good, at first glance, the idea has failed?

The opinion of the teacher

Mikhail Pavlovets, Associate Professor NIU HSE:

- This kind of exams are testing not what you can, not what you are capable of, and not how flexibly you react in an unknown situation. They check completely different skills: how much you adapt, you know how to write off, reproduce the finished template, how well your memory remembers the formulas and is ready to reproduce them at any time. There are universal works on which all topics are written: for example, there is a year when all five topics are written according to the “fate of a person”, there is a year when all five works are written on a “grenade bracelet”. These works relate to the program of 8–9 grades, that is, in recent years of studying at school, nothing new for the children was read. And why read something else when you can just train for an essay? &

Officials forgot that admission to the exam is a bad motivator of students' conscious interest in reading.

In 2013, when the final essay was introduced, universities decided to take into account his results when the student entered the institute. And soon they began to deal with the fact that the scans of the final works provided for the recheck were unread, incomplete, could contain obvious editing with a strange hand. The enthusiasm of universities began to melt. And this year, all higher educational institutions abandoned the rechecking of the final works, they considered this lesson meaningless.

The word to the graduate

A graduate of 2015 Andrey:

- When the essay was only introduced, directions began to be published on the sites, the themes were not published. The teachers themselves began to invent them and give them to us - as we were told later, so that everyone would write an essay “for sure”. In the graduation classes, I really loved classical literature and wrote essays on the works of classics well. But as soon as preparations for the final essay began, I began to hear phrases from teachers: “You won’t be fed with beautiful words, you need to take admission”, “This is a departure from the topic, I had to write according to the template.”

If you prepare with tutors, then the question arises: why? They are the same teachers, they give out the same templates.

Throughout the preparation, we were forced to teach special excerpts from the works. As a result, I and my desk neighbor, which never read in literary works, but always had five in physics, both received a “test.” &

This year, the date of IC was postponed in connection with the epidemiological situation in Russia. This is a forced measure, you can’t argue with this. But how did the students of 11th grades react to such a turn of events? Are they glad to have more time to prepare?

What the schoolchildren say

11-grader Masha:

- It's horrible. Firstly, we will not be able to completely immerse ourselves in preparation for exams. All excerpts from the works with all the details that we use to confirm our point of view must be kept in mind. And once a week we will be forced to write an essay for training. Secondly, a small break between exams. For me personally, every work is responsibility, which means stress. Therefore, I will pass the main exams several points lower than I can. &

The final essay is a rather meaningless exam, especially this year, when universities refused to take it into account upon admission.

Everything came down to the fact that teachers and students spend precious time in the graduation class on stupid memorization of templates and quotes.

And what to do with all this?

The opinion of the teacher

Mikhail Pavlovets:

- I suppose that IP will exist for a long time. Yes, it is pointless, but why break the established system? For many teachers, a great joy is that students read at least something. They absolutely do not matter the conscious reading of the book, it is simply important for them to “go through” the material of the school curriculum.

I think that in the future, the final essay will remain in those schools where for students it will be achieved at all to write something, albeit by template, but write. Universities did not see any more sense in the rechecking of the same works, so they created their own championship “in their own words”, where students can choose an interesting topic for them, related to the future direction of the institute. In this Olympics, the student will not help the student, there you need to think, and this is a completely different level. And it is based on the student’s personal desire. Why is no one opposed the final composition? Teachers who do not like to engage in meaningless activities leave schools. But teachers come to their seats, who does not matter whether it makes sense of their work or not. In the meantime, teachers are not ready to break the meaningless system, alas, we will not be able to do anything.