He knows the Slovak literary world Daniel Hevier (70) as a recognized poet, novelist and lyricist, whose works accompany generations of children and adults. Recently, his name appeared in the graduation tests, but instead of the expected joy, more criticism came. The writer publicly questioned the way in which literature and its teaching are approached in schools.
Hevier admitted that he was completely unaware of his inclusion in the matriculation questions, and that the news worried him rather than pleased him. “It also happened to me that I was a matriculation question, which does not please me at all. I didn’t know about it at all, I didn’t do anything, I didn’t go around saying, ‘Put me there, please’, so that the kids would hate me even more, so that I would be even more unlikable to them, because maybe someone would be angry with me. And then I looked at the questions… Well, I wouldn’t graduate today.” he stated on Saturday, March 7 in a VIDEO on the social network, which you can find at the beginning of the article.
The very question derailed him. “There was a sample from my text and a question like this: ‘Which word from the sample contains a vowel group? The dissertation, more intensively, more, will help.’ Well, take a guess. I would have guessed completely wrong. The vowel group is in the word dissertation. This is such knowledge that you cannot live without it in life, if you do not know what a vowel group is. All wrong“, he stated.
He had a similarly critical view of another matriculation question. “This is even worse: ‘How old does a person have to be to visit an adult library?’ Well, if you ever need to look it up, you look it up at the library or somewhere. But it’s like with the driver’s license that you should be 18 years old, I was about 14 because I was a very advanced reader,” he revealed.
He just shakes his head in disbelief at the current set-up of maturity exams. “I am dissatisfied with these questions, not only as far as I am concerned, but in my opinion the entire concept of graduation is so mistaken, insufficient. It does not at all describe the times we live in.” believes. Instead of memorizing lessons and test tricks, the writer has a completely different model in mind that would motivate students to grow instead of stressing them out.
“I have such a dream, such a vision. Perhaps I will still have the strength and some means to carry it out. A child comes to secondary school and now we tell him: ‘Listen, cat or boy, you have 4 years to grow up, to learn something here. Tell us what you want to learn in those 4 years, what language, what musical instrument, what movement, what sport, what books you want to read, what area interests you'” suggests an alternative.
The essence of his revolutionary change is not to test what he has learned, but to celebrate where a young person has been able to move through his own efforts in four years of study. “Maybe we’ll write some kind of memorandum in 4 years, instead of trying you out of it, in 4 years you will present it. And that could be the graduation. Give me a like if you like it or a thumbs down. Maybe we will move our education system in this way as well,” he added.
