Can he pass the test?
Principal walks in students’ shoes
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ST. IGNATIUS – Anyone remember taking high school finals?
According to Mission High School Freshman Isaac Dumontier, finals week is not something people usually want to do. He said it’s a week full of grueling stress.
“You can tell it’s a different day than usual,” he said. “The kids’ faces all look tired. Some of them stayed up all night studying.”
Students take exams at the end of the semester in each class on material they learned. The process takes more than an hour at a time. The grades they get from their final tests push their semester grades up or down by 20 percent.
When Principal Shawn Hendrickson decided to become a freshman for a day and take those finals, Dumontier thought it was a little strange that someone would volunteer for the task.
“I wanted to put myself in the place of a kid and see what it’s like,” Hendrickson said.
He figured shadowing a student for a day and doing the same in-class work might help him see what could be improved from a student’s perspective.
He said he is always looking for ways to improve things through experiences like this or by reading science-based educational studies.
Hendrickson also wants to know how athletics affect students. Dumontier is a wrestler so he was the perfect student to shadow. He goes to practice every day after school, works on homework after practice, eats dinner, and goes to bed. During finals week, he stays up late studying.
Hendrickson has empathy for the work students put into school.
“It’s tough being a kid,” he said. “Teachers have a lot of work to do teaching, preparing the test, and grading, but we also have to consider that kids work hard, too.”
On Tuesday, Jan. 17, Hendrickson walked into the freshman Algebra class in the morning hours. He sat down at a table among the students, listened to the test directions, and put pencil to paper to work out several pages of math problems. The room was quiet with thought.
Hendrickson continued working on the problems, but about halfway through the test, he started to feel nervous. It was tougher than he thought it would be.
Unlike the other students, he didn’t study. He was relying on memory, and he didn’t bring a calculator like the other students. He had never failed a final and he hoped this wouldn’t be the first time. The last time he took high school finals was back in 1995, before he graduated, although he did go to college and get a master’s degree.
His mind started feeling fatigued. He took an earth science final before the math test. He thought the science test was “brutal,” but the math test really challenged him.
Hendrickson also wasn’t used to sitting in a chair for so long. As a principal, he is often moving about the school to talk to teachers and students.
With a grin on his face, science teacher John Ligas promised to grade Hendrickson “harshly.” After Hendrickson finished the test, he got up and handed it in to the teacher, relieved to be finished.
He said he is going to take the experience and talk with teachers. He might consider shortening the test time for the next round of finals at the end of the year and possibly the length of the tests or maybe spread the exams out throughout the day. He said the tests are tough but they have a purpose.
“The kids need to demonstrate their knowledge,” he said. “We need to find out what they know.”
The tests also help teachers. He said if everyone doesn’t do well on a portion of the test, the way the material was taught might need to change. T
he final exams are also designed to prepare kids for the future.
“If they go to college, a trade school, or apprentice, some kind of test will be given,” he said. “We want to prepare them for life.”
Dumontier finished his test soon after Hendrickson.
“I don’t think I did too bad,” he said. “I just tried to keep calm and think of everything I learned.”
He thinks he might have done a bit better than the principal. “Maybe I didn’t struggle as much because I did study and I was in the class during the year,” he said.
Dumontier had the same reaction to the test as the principal. “It was too long,” he said. He also felt a sense of relief when it was over, although he had a few more exams during the week.
Hendrickson waited anxiously to find out how he did on the final exams. He reported that he did pass with a 74 percent in Algebra and a C– in science.
