And then, what goings-on ... The goings-on of the School, oh, those are ... priceless stories! But yesterday evening, I suddenly became indignant about a boy, the boy who had been accused of copying. He asserted he hadn't copied, and I saw he hadn't (but what I saw was almost worse!), and I said, "No more exams" - a dreadful row everywhere! Then K., who is really a good boy, wrote to me, "Should I not rather tell the boy that you decided he hadn't copied, because he must be worrying?" I thought, "Poor K.!" But anyway, it was a nice gesture, so I said yes. Then he called the boy, told him what he had to, also that exams were abolished and the whole matter was over and done with. As soon as the boy left him, he went and told his friends a world of lies: that I had asked K. to apologize, to express regret and reinstate the boy, and a lot of fibs ... a series of terrible lies (and lies about me). You understand, I had had a movement of sympathy for K. for what he had done; it shows a sort of nobleness of soul in him: he was so convinced, but he accepted what I said and made that gesture because he thought the boy must have been worrying. Then the boy's thoroughly disgusting reaction ... I had to restrain myself (inwardly): I was displeased. I had hoped, on the contrary, that that goodwill would give rise to a somewhat noble response, but all that is a sort of degradation.... Yesterday, I was on the point of giving the child an inner slap - I stopped myself from doing so, but he has clearly put himself in a bad spot.

Now they write to ask me, "How can we know whether the children follow if we don't have exams?" I had to explain the difference between a sort of individual control coming from observation, a remark, an unexpected question and so on, which allows the teacher to place the child, and the other method in which you are told, "You will have an exam in eight days and the subject will be what you have learned" - so everyone starts reviewing what he has learned and preparing himself, and that's that: the student with a good memory is the one who passes. I explained all that. [[Here is the text of Mother's fourth and last note on the subject: "Naturally the teacher has to test the student to know if he or she has learnt something and has made a progress. But this test must be individual and adapted to each student, not the same mechanical test for all of them. It must be a spontaneous and unexpected test leaving no room for presence and insincerity. Naturally also, this is much more difficult for the teacher but so much more living and interesting also. I enjoyed your remarks about your students. They prove that you have an individual relation with them - and that is essential for good teaching. Those who are insincere do not truly want to learn but to get good marks or compliments from the teacher - they are not interesting. "(July 25, 1967) ]]


If I had been a teacher, my objection to this decision would notat all have been from the teachers' point of view, but from the

students' because I remember my studies, and had you not been

obliged every three or six months to review what was learned in

school, well, you know, you'd have just let it slip away.

Well, too bad!

But it's a sort of discipline that makes you review things.
If you aren't interested enough in the subject to try and remember it and retain the result of what you've learned, well, too bad, it's too bad for you.

The students' point of view is false, the teachers' point of view is false.

The students' point of view: they learn just to appear to know, pass their exam and cram their heads with all kinds of things.... The teachers' point of view is to have as easy a control as possible and be able to give marks without giving themselves too much trouble, with as little effort as possible. As for me, I say: each student is an individuality, each student should come not because he wants to be able to say, "I have studied and am going to take my exams," but because he is eager to know and comes with the will to know. And the teacher must not follow the easy method of giving a subject and seeing how everyone answers, whether the answer is good or bad, conforms to what he has taught or not: he must find out whether the student's interest and effort are sincere, and everyone according to his own nature - for the teacher it's infinitely more difficult, but that's education. And they protest.

As regards the teachers' point of view, I certainly agree entirely ...
Yes, but they are the ones who protest! (Laughing) The students don't. But I wrote the teachers: the students who want to please their teacher or learn by heart in order to seem to know what they haven't understood, well, those students aren't interesting - and they are always the ones about whom I am told, "He is a good student!"


page 257-38 , Mother's Agenda , volume 8 , 26th July - 1967