Midterm Exams

This past week, JT sat for his first set of high school midterm exams.  My school runs a special schedule for midterms and so he didn’t have regular classes and each day he instead reported to the Lower Gym, where an array of more than 300 desks were lined up for the test-takers.  

Last weekend, he pulled together a semester’s worth of notes and reviewed those ideas.  Midterms are worth 10% of a student’s final grade in the course and so they are important.  More important in my mind was allowing him to take command of the process and organize his preparation and studying.  Luckily, his work was broken up by wrestling practice and a rather important wrestling tournament.  These provided a much-needed break and a bit of release, both essential to staying on top of his schoolwork and managing his time.  He sought advice from me as he got prepared but mostly he studied on his own from study guides and flashcards that he and his friends made together.

In a way, with 10% of his grade on the line and in his first year of grades that “count” for eventual college applications, this was risky on my part.  But I am a parent who believes my job is raise a child who can be a happy, independent adult.  If he got to his exams and felt well-prepared, this past week will have served that purpose quite nicely.  If he didn’t feel prepared when it came time to figure math problems or write English essays, then he’ll also learn from that and come final exam season in June we’ll work out on a better plan.   Either way, I believe that this process will have given him important insight into himself.

In the meantime, he gets to this weekend with an empty homework agenda.  We have Monday off from school so that teachers can grade those exams and JT is excited about 3 days with nary a single obligation to schoolwork.   He’s a pile of Sports Illustrated magazines to read, two books at the ready, wrestling practice to attend and a well-earned sense of accomplishment.   That’s happy!