What is in Kelvin's Head?

5 things about exams that matter more than results

04/08/2015

Today is exam results day in Scotland. Lots of young people will be getting examination results that will make a significant difference to further study.

Such public exam results carry with them a lot of stress.

I’ve sat lots of exams in my life and I think it would be fair to say that I’ve had mixed results. Some have been hugely disappointing and others have been exactly what I hoped for.

My most difficult exam results were my A levels which I got when I was 17. Oh yes, I got a bunch of science A levels but they were not the grades I was hoping for and they meant that I couldn’t get into the university course that my heart was set on. I had to go somewhere else to get a Maths and Computing degree. At the time it seemed like the end of the world. Now, I’ve lost track of the number of people who have said to me, “wow, you got a degree in maths!”

As it happens, I resat part of the middle year of that degree as I comprehensively failed some exams and had to take a year resitting. It also happens that I had rather an enjoyable time in the year I was failing exams and an even better time in the year that I eventually passed. And yes, thank you very much, I did get a maths degree. And though I don’t remember all that much of what I learned, I didn’t forget everything either.

Anyway, thinking about the exam results this morning got me thinking about a few things that are more important than exam results.

1 – I’m still in touch with friends that I sat all my exams with

I’m glad I live in the first years of the social media revolution. It makes life completely different. It means that I’m in touch with people that I sat all my exams with. Indeed, when I think back to particular periods of my studying life I tend to think of those periods as much through the lens of the friendships that I made than the things that I was actually supposed to be learning.

Friendships matter more than exam results. Some people find it difficult to make friends. Like passing exams, it is a knack that can be learned. However, I’d say that studying together with other people is one of the best ways of making friendships that last a long time. Many friendships made during study last longer than romantic entanglements. Go figure.

2 – I’ve forgotten most of what I studied for

I think it probably is the case that I’ve forgotten most of the things that I studied in order to pass examinations. I don’t think that this means that those exams were worthless – not at all. I think that eventually I learned that passing exams is about learning how to learn. I rather wish some of my teachers had been better at communicating this to me but there you go, I figured it out in the end. I struggle to conjugate French verbs and I can barely read the Hebrew characters that I once learned in order to read the book of Genesis in the original. I know I wouldn’t get very far with a calculus paper and I get frustrated that I can’t remember what I once thought I’d learned about databases. However, that’s not the point. I’ve learned how to learn and I know that I can acquire new skills when I need to. Indeed, one of the things I decided to do today was spend some time at home learning how to use a particular computer graphics package that’s going to set me free to do all kinds of tricks at work. I’ve learned how to learn and that’s more important than any number of the certificates that I have. Indeed, I go on learning with rapacious intent.

3 – I can remember more of what I studied for than I expect

When push comes to shove, as it does in life sooner or later, I find that I can actually remember all kinds of things that I thought I had forgotten. I may not be able to remember my Hebrew but if someone asks me why we pause in the middle of the psalm verses in morning prayer I’m straight off to dig out my Hebrew bible to show them. I can’t remember my French verbs but when life puts you on a sinking yacht in a canal in France and you have to call out les pompiers in french on a dodgy mobile phone, suddenly you find you can remember far more than you expect. (And you learn even more vocabulary on the way – I’ll never to my dying day forget that la grue means the crane). I don’t think I’d enjoy taking a driving test again but I get myself around without bumping into things rather efficiently. I’ll probably never sit any more music exams but they gave me enough to enjoy sitting at the piano and to my astonishment I find that I’ve become an opera critic whom some folk seem to listen to. I regret not taking more courses in English literature but I had an English teacher who gave me a love of the stage which has never done away and which has given me more delight than anyone else ever has. (And bless him, he’ll probably never know that was the gift he gave me).

4 – You can almost always resit and you can always revise your plans

So, I got disappointing A levels, I failed a year at college, I failed a driving test and when I tried the first time, the church comprehensively said I had no vocation to be a priest. In the end, none of these things defined my life. I’ve learned that you can almost always resit exams and you can always revise your plans. Things can still work out even if you get a disappointing result. Indeed, the truth is, you are going to have disappointments in life. Exams can teach you how to deal with them. Sometimes you don’t get what you want but so what? Being able to adapt and change your plans is a greater life skill than passing exams in the first place. Exam results sometimes feel like the end of the world. They never are. The trick is not to be defined by the things you have not succeeded at. An exam result is only a snapshot of how you were doing at one particular part of life. It isn’t life itself.

5 – I’m glad I sat the exams I did, even the ones I failed

It takes time to learn to be thankful for disappointment. Indeed, there’s no real point talking about it with someone who is in the first phase of coming to terms with it. However, the truth is, there are silver linings in many a cloud. The trouble is, it takes time and wisdom to be able to see them. Don’t ask what you learned in order to pass an exam – ask what you learned by getting the result you got. Don’t ask why you can’t do what you hoped to do, ask what you hope to do now.

One of the things that I’ve been getting people at St Mary’s to work towards in the next few months is a new course for people to think about their own gifts and skills. I have a hunch that people are far too much defined by the exam results and certificates that they have got when in fact they have surprisingly diverse gifts which are incapable of being examined in traditional ways which add up to all kinds of inner calls.

My congratulations go to all those rejoicing today. My commiserations to those who didn’t get what they wanted. It’s miserable. I know it is miserable but I also know it isn’t the thing that needs to define who you are.

examinations, failing exam, friendship, matter more than exams, results

10 responses to “Where does the Church of Scotland stand?”

Robin

21/05/2013

I understand your sentiments, but both on this issue and on the ordination of women in the Church of England the weary words of Mrs Boyle in Sean O’Casey’s ‘Juno and the Paycock’ in reply to her son, who scorns the Irish Free State and wants an Irish Republic or nothing, are inclined to come to mind:

“To be sure, to be sure — no bread’s a lot better than half a loaf.”

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Nick Brindley

21/05/2013

I think you’re right to think this is a disastrously wrong-headed attempt to avoid having to think the issue through, although we may not agree on what would be involved in such thinking (almost nobody agrees with me!)

I think we need to revisit some pretty fundamental problems on the nature of the moral authority of the Bible, the meaning of “salvation” and what ministry is to make any real progress with this issue and there appears to be depressingly little appetite to do this in a spirit of mutual trust and of trust in the leading of the Spirit guiding our interpretation of scripture

http://loveswork.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/failing-to-be-biblical-reflections-on-church-of-scotland-sexuality-debates/

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Frank keefe

21/05/2013

This is what happens when you water down Gods truth so the secular world will think what a progressive church you are.When a small secular wedge is pushed under a church door you can bet a larger one will be pushed under it in the not to distant future.I believe a liberal minded church like the Church of Scotland is more dangerous to the Christian faith than atheists like Richard Dawkins and his followers. Jesus found it hard to convince the Pharisees of their misguided beliefs if He walked our earth today He would find those modern day Pharisees in the Church of Scotland even harder to convince.

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1. Rosemary Hannah
  
  21/05/2013
  
  Well, there you go – I think the exact opposite – that Jesus, who plucked corn, and healed, on the Sabbath, would be out partying tonight with all sorts of disreputable people. The Pharisees were the people who stuck rigidly to the law, breaking it even as they kept it. Jesus was the one who re-interpreted it.
  
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  1. Frank keefe
    
    21/05/2013
    
    I find it amazing how those who look for sin to be accepted would try and use Jesus to back them up.First Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath.The Pharisees abused Gods law with their legalism.Its why He said about the rescue of a sheep on that day.He didnt re-interpret it He was showing them how it SHOULD BE KEPT as God ALWAYS intended it.Its the church who is doing the interpretation and Jesus certainly wouldnt be “out partying” such disrespect of our Lords holiness is often the way with liberal ” Christians” Instead of the church being a light to the world that worlds darkness is putting out that light.
    
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    1. kelvin
      
      21/05/2013
      
      Bless you for your faith, Frank. May it bring you happiness and joy.
      
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Graeme Cowie

21/05/2013

It’s a fudge, no doubt. And one which, far from preserving the “traditional” Kirk actually serves to undermine it in a number of ways, particularly concerning the status of “doctrine” and who gets to determine what it is, or at least what practical meaning it is for something to be “doctrine” rather than merely a personal religious sentiment. Explicitly to permit complete deviation from “doctrine” by congregations is not very Presbyterian, and the “traditionalists” either didn’t seem to realise that, or they care about preserving substantial doctrines at the expense of, well, what makes the Kirk the Kirk.

To an extent, though, you could see it coming. I think the traditionalist wing sensed they would lose if it was a straight choice (unfortunate phrase) between 2A and 2B, and so tried to push for something that retains a symbolic attachment to historical doctrine whilst letting liberals have the lion’s share of the cake they want, which is to be able to ordain those in committed same-sex relationships and to be done with it. I know for a fact that a fair whack of liberal commissioners were swayed by 2D (not including my parents, who are CofS ministers who voted with option 2A), many seeing it as a way of letting the traditionalists have some sort of phyric victory whilst in fact enabling ministers to be in civil partnerships without any lasting problems. It is much more likely that 2D will make it through Barrier Act procedure now that it’s got the traditionalists’ name on it, and notwithstanding the extra year it’s going to take to turn it into a proper overture, I think the consensus of the Kirk is that they really want to stop talking about this.

The new system ought to be fairly robust once the Legal Questions Committee have had their teeth dug into it. The clear intention was conceded by the movers that they did not intend for Presbyteries to be able to discipline or annul decisions made by Kirk Sessions seeking to be allowed to appoint ministers in civil partnerships, and for a lot of liberals (and actually, a lot of those on the conservative wing too) this will be seen as a critical part of the compromise if it is to be laid to rest. My only real concern is that if the traditionalists are for any reason unhappy with the implementation by LQC it could lead to the whole debate re-opening in GA 2014.

It’s clearly not enough for many liberal ministers, elders and members of the Church of Scotland, for whom this still presents a partial sense of “separate not equal” for congregation and minister alike, and it probably makes it more difficult for the theological position of the kirk formally to be moved away from same sex relationships being sinful, now that the “practical harms” are in a significant sense out of the way, but by Church of Scotland standards, it’s a major step forward for a very broad church, and one which has probably saved it from a major schism (though a handful of churches may still leave over and above The Tron and Gilc South). For those of us in the Kirk 5 years ago, this would have been virtually unthinkable, and momentum has picked up since the Rennie case 4 years ago. The good fight goes on, and hurdles remain, but if it gets through Barrier Act procedure I think the practical objectives, in a Kirk which already offers substantial liberty of personal opinion in matters of doctrine which do not enter into the substance of faith, have largely been met, albeit in a roundabout way.

For more of my thoughts on this matter, see:

http://www.predictableparadox.co.uk/2013/05/church-of-scotland-religious-progress.html

and

http://www.predictableparadox.co.uk/2013/05/presbyterianism-cracking-at-seems-cost.html

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Margaret of the Sea of Galilee

22/05/2013

And it still does not properly address how LGBTQ people (single or in civil partnerships) will be dealt with (dealt to?) when they offer themselves to Presbyteries as feeling called to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament. Will they be asked about their orientation? Questioned? Interrogated? What responses will allow them to or prevent them from pursuing that call?

Who is this Albert Bogle anyway – is he about to become the first to be beatified by the Kirk and for what exactly? By-passing (even disregarding) Kirk “Order”, convincing his important friends to let him bulldoze ahead and his less important friends to print off 700 and something copies of a Deliverance which is incoherent and unimplementable.
Off to read Revelation for other signs of The End Times…
.

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Peter W Nimmo

25/05/2013

Kelvin, you make lots of good points in your post. But just to clarify- what is the doctrine and practice of the Scottish Episcopal Church on this issue? Does your doctrine approve of persons in civil partnerships being clergy, and is that put into practice?

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1. kelvin
  
  25/05/2013
  
  Yes – there are quite a number of clergy in civil partnerships. In England, Anglican clergy in civil partnerships are supposed to declare that they are “celibate”. That isn’t the case in Scotland.
  
  The pension scheme in Scotland recognises Civil Partnerships by giving such partners the same benefits as wives or husbands in marriages. Civil Partners also are treated in the same way with regard to housing as a straight spouse if a relationship breaks down.
  
  Any candidate for ordination who is in a Civil Partnership is expected to be honest about that at selection.
  
  The bishops of the church announced a few years ago that they would not consecrate anyone as bishop who was in a Civil Partnership. They were clear at the time that this was a moratorium. However it is not clear to me whether that moratorium still stands. I do expect there to be questions about that at the coming Synod.
  
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