DURING the exam season, students and their families put themselves on alert to cope with the heavy burden of the exams. Such a chaotic situation indicates that something wrong has to be fixed. If exams are an essential part of the learning process, then why on earth are students and their parents scared during the period of exams? It is evident that most students don't pay enough attention to the contents of the subjects they study throughout the semester. As they approach exams they begin to realize that they might lose marks because of their laziness. The result is that those students become desperate for different aspects of help and seem like the person who is searching for a needle in a stack of hay. What are the real causes of this serious problem of insufficient preparation for the exams? How could we get rid of the widespread convention that students shouldn't worry about the exams till it is the week of the finals? What could we do to the multiple factors that distract students' attention and divert their focus into trivial side matters? The low level of achievement of our students indicates that the quality and quantity of knowledge average students get in Saudi Arabia are lower than the knowledge their counterparts get in many neighboring countries. Painful exams experience is only one of the symptoms that indicate clearly the increasing need for serious social and educational reform. There must be some sort of oscillation in one of the components of the educational trichotomy; students, teachers, and curricula. I think school kids in this country are just as smart as other school kids in other countries. However, in most of the cases they are not motivated to work hard and learn seriously. I know for sure that learning is looked down upon in the eyes of most students because they think that getting good education is not necessary since good education can't improve their socioeconomic status. Such an ill thought should be addressed to positively in order to convince students that it is education that can improve all matters in their life. Are teachers in our schools good enough to carry out the teaching process? Are they productive enough to set the example of hard work to their students? Almost all teachers in this country have college degrees in certain majors which make them, from a theoretical point of view, capable of tackling teaching tasks. However, I think it is very necessary to start on-job training programs for teachers especially those who have spent 10 years or more in the field without studying any courses beyond what they took at college. I think also that the general education system is not well designed to meet the different needs of different groups of learners. The concept of imposing a standardized educational system where all students learn the same things and all schools do the same activities is a peculiar concept that will never lead us to the desired results. What is needed the most is a dynamic mechanism to produce good students by responding to particular needs of particular groups of students. Many students complain that they are not doing well in schools because they feel they are lost. Particularly, they are less motivated to learn which makes them less confident in what they are doing. This is a dangerous indicator that must be tackled carefully to avoid the possible consequences that could make the situation even worse. There is an increasing need to restore confidence in ourselves, our abilities, and move on to build a robust educational system that involves our children and helps them achieve their goals. Preparation for exams should be an essential component of the learning experience. It should start early in the academic year to avoid any confusion. Parents shouldn't wait to the last minute to turn homes into camps in which schoolchildren are forced to swallow information. Teachers should follow more practical in-class activities to motivate students to learn and consequently internalize the experiences they had in school in order to be well-prepared for the exams. __
