There are no exams to take for learning to ride a bicycle, or any other skill we pick up in childhood. Either alone, or helped by friends, we play, fall, mess up, and play some more until we develop an appreciable facility that need not be validated by an external moderator. What keeps us going is how much fun we are having while we practice, and the sense of empowerment we get 'levelling up'.
What is left when we strip away the exam component from the H1 General Paper (GP)? For most of the fraternity, and practically all GP students, the paper and the exam are sadly indistinguishable. None would take the subject voluntarily, so it is compulsory for everyone to take. Since the exam IS the thing, no one looks beyond the exam, and every student is happy to drop it as soon as the final exam at the end of second year is taken and passed. No one forgets how to ride a bike, but GP is one and done.
If we forget the exam and stop worrying about the results, we could stop teaching 'skills' that are only relevant to the exam. Without things like 'question types', and the nit-picky 'close reading', and the excessive paraphrasing, and many other limiting, rule-bound redundancies, GP as a skill would be rather therapeutic, at the very least.
If learning skills is about fun and empowerment, then GP combines current affairs with language to the effect that our young students can grab humanity by the collar, give us a good shake, and show us how we've messed up the world for ourselves, for the planet, and for the future. The subject presents a unique opportunity for teenage angst, frustration, anxiety, and despair to have a legitimate, yet positive outlet. And when the students are done railing at humanity, they can say, 'Do you see what you've done? Do you understand what you've done? And now, you know what you need to do to make it right!'
Students are tired of being told what to do, so let's have a little fun with the exams. The questions on the exam are not for the students to answer, but rather for them to make humanity answerable for so much that has gone wrong in the world today, and to make restitution and amends thereafter. That's empowerment. And if the students can see the opportunity instead of the exam, the results will speak for themselves.
