WHAT IS CRAMMING?

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10277, 4 July 1911, Page 4

WHAT IS CRAMMING?

Some remarks on. the advantages and disadvantages of examinations were made by Mr E. K. Mulgan, ohief inspector of the Auckland schools, at the opening of the Sacred Heart Convent at Remuera on Monday. Mr Mulgan said that examinations had their distinct advantages, as well as,undoubted drawbacks. "Tlie stock charge against examinations," rhe said, /'is. that they lead to,' or I lend themselves to, < cramming. It j is difficult to know what is implied by 'cramming,' but if it means the power of being able to master part of a subject in a limited time, it can hardly be said to be without educative and iitilitive value. It may ' be true that when the examination is over the candidate may never have occasion to refer directly to the subject in which he has been tested, but he has acquired the i power of learning with rapidity, and perhaps to'apply himself resolutely where he may have little real interest. This is a highly valuable and educative exercise. The fuller and more responsible life lying before him will require a performance of many unpleasant duties and much hard and disagreeable work. Can there> be any better preparation for this than when, at .school he had to apply himself to unpleasant task® in a serious and determined way P" Ma' Mulgan said that he believed there was such a thing as injurious oranuming, by which he meant the hasty and imperfect training which not only left no lasting impression behind, and cultivated the memory at tlie expense of the'intelligence, but what was infinitely worse, led young people, to imagine that a real gijasp of a subject was being apquirod wlien ithey were merely memorising a little superficial knowledge, and mistaking tlie shadow for the substance. Cramming in this sense was unfortunately not altogether unknown, and no one more than he deplored its existence, but what he wished to draw attention to was that many people made against examinations, and against their education ts.vstem, the charge of cramming without clearly understanding what the term implied, or ihow insecure was the foundation •on which such a charge rested. In conclusion, the speaker referred to the grave danger that lay in making top much of examinations, and allowing them.', to divert the attention of both, pupil and teacher from the real and more enduring aims of-education. '