Time to burn your notes and tests...

The other weekend, we went to Kingston, Ontario. There, we visited the beautiful Queens University. I was very impressed with the arcitechture and the setting. The weather was nice, so we went for a stroll along the water. In a few different spots, we found burned papers, burned tests, burned notes. I took a few pictures, and even kept one page because it gave me pleasure to see it. Here is what I kept:

This is the time, end of school, end of exams, to burn everything and anything to do with a course you hated (and even sometimes the ones you loved). It is a sort of cleansing of the palet, cleansing of the brain of all the bad times, all the hours of studying and agonizing over silly tests, silly assignments. A way of starting the summer with a blank slate. Its a very visual way of "forgetting everything about the course minutes after leaving the examination room".

I actually never burned any of my notes. Although sometimes I really really wanted to. (I think I still have all my notes from high school all the way up to my last year of university. In fact I don't think I ever looked back at my notes - it's more of a ). My way of saying good bye was to sell my books back to the university bookstore. I remember being very extatic when I sold my first year biology book. I hated memorizing all those meaningless "cycles", bacteria shapes, etc. However now, I really regret doing so, because I always want to look something. It's much easier to find it in a familiar textbook rather than searching endless posts online. I find I look at my old textbooks a lot of the time. I apprectiate them a lot more now than when I was taking the course.

Sometimes, when I return tests or assignments to my students, I see they either throw them out or leave them behind on the table. They don't care. I find that a bit insulting - don't know why, but I do. I think burning your notes or tests at the end of the term is quite different from the "I don't care" attitude. Burning actually shows some passion, it takes effort, planning. So when I saw the charred math assignment on the ground ar Queens, it made me happy to see that kids still care enough about school to put in that effort.

So go ahead and burn your school year away. Make it a celebration... Schools out for summer!