Semester Exams Discussion Continues in Council – Council Update (1/31/18)
This past week’s Council meeting began with Assistant Moderator Jasper Meyer declaring that Moderator Aisling Kelly was sick and that he would be filling in for her as moderator. After this declaration, Council discussed the OEC Common Ground Motion. As a representative of OEC Sophomore Representative Sophie Mitchell represented what the motion would do. The motion would put all incoming 9th graders who were voted onto Council into Common Grounds that currently don’t have Council Members in them. In addition, the motion would then require OEC to ask Council members to voluntarily move to CGs without Council members or give Council reports to CGs without members. The motion quickly passed unanimously with nearly no opposition.
Council then moved on to a continuation of last week’s Exam Discussion. Junior Representative Dory Psomas opened the discussion by saying that she felt it would be bad to incorporate exam week into a normal school week as students would just end up studying during their other classes. Freshman Representative Sage McGinley-Smith proposed putting exam week before holiday break, saying that she thought it would reduce exam stress significantly. On the other hand, Junior Representative Elizabeth Napier proposed having three days for exams in which each day students would take 2 exams. This proposition brought some avid opposition from Sophomore Representative Clay Kynor who stated that he enjoys studying with friends at the Howe and going to Ramunto’s after exams. Freshman Representative Casey McGuire brought a new perspective to the conversation, saying that she went to a school last year that did two exams a day for three days and thought the Hanover format is much better.
Council then segued into discussing making all exams worth 10%. Teacher Representative Mr. Gentine said he would oppose any such motion because it would cheapen the exam which he said is supposed to be a culmination of everything one has learned in the course. For the second week in a row the gavel was passed during a conversation as AMOD Meyer put himself on the speaker’s list and handed the gavel over to Co-Treasurer Max Taxman. Meyer then made his point, which was that he doesn’t believe just hard work should earn someone an A in a class, which is what he feels making all exams worth 10% would do. After some more input infuriated Co-Treasurer Colm Seigne said that he couldn’t stand hearing kids continually say that their grades are more important than their learning and that he was extremely frustrated constantly hearing kids complain that their grade might go from an A to an A- because their exam was worth 20%. This clearly struck a chord as Council quickly ended the discussion.
The meeting ended with some brief “News and Notes.” AMOD Meyer discussed how empty the Walls of Shame and Limbo have become and how they should probably take them down. Mr. Gentine then ended the meeting by saying that Council has to find consistency when discussing how the High School prepares kids for college, as members say that this is an environment to prepare kids for college when it suits them but when it doesn’t they say that it is an institution completely independent of college.
