The whole family is in a panic about the semester exams like university exams, why is it that the less the workload, the more tired we are?

The curriculum has been reduced, it was thought that studying and taking exams would be easier for the children, but it seems that the burden of grades is like a heavy stone added to an already oversized bag. As a parent of an 11th grader, I dread every semester exam of my child, and I feel that the university entrance exam is not as stressful.

Study day and night

Half a month before my child’s first semester exam, my whole family entered a tense “war” of studying with him. The 8 exam subjects were 8 sets of outlines with a “huge” amount of knowledge, and there was not a single day my child went to bed before 1am.

Working day and night to study (Photo: GDTĐ)

As workers in a garment factory near our home, my husband and I often work overtime until 8pm, our whole bodies aching from standing at the sewing machine all day. However, we don’t get to rest, we quickly finish our bowl of rice and then sit down at the table to “study” with our child.

There are many difficult exercises for the children to do, many of which are quite difficult and cannot be found in the textbooks, so my children and I have to go online to find instructions on how to solve them. My wife often asks if we are hungry or thirsty so she can make us a glass of milk or peel a plate of fruit to "recharge" us.

We are workers so we want our son to study well so that he will not have to work hard like his parents, but we do not put pressure on him to get good grades. Many times we feel sorry for our son and urge him to go to bed early but he refuses, saying that the teacher will give him a test tomorrow.

Seeing the boy was so skinny studying for the exam, my grandparents thought my husband and I were forcing him to study so many times they scolded him and explained but he didn't believe them and got angry and refused to eat.

Mainly cramming to learn by heart

Not only my eldest son is stressed about studying for his semester exams, but even my youngest daughter in grade 7 is equally stressed, going to extra classes every night and then doing homework until 1am. The review outline mostly requires memorization, many subjects, a lot of knowledge, and the review time is rushed, so learning one thing and forgetting the next makes my child even more nervous and stressed.

She studied for the exam anytime, anywhere, even when eating, I heard her mumbling some concept or law. When I was driving her home from school, she was quiet and didn't say anything. I called her and she was startled and said she was trying to remember the poem.

Review knowledge is mainly crammed to memorize (Photo: vietnamnet)

The time spent reviewing for exams took up all of my thoughts, all fun activities and reading were abandoned. Even the essentials of eating, drinking, and bathing were cut down to the minimum to save for the semester exam review.

After just over a week of reviewing for the first semester exams, my child has lost nearly 2kg, his eyes are sunken because he stays up late every day, his face is dull and lifeless, making both my husband and I extremely worried.

Meanwhile, both children are entering puberty - an important age that determines physical and mental development. However, exams have worn down their strength, physical activities, sports or eating and sleeping properly to develop physically are something too luxurious before the semester exams.

Nowadays, people talk a lot about how the younger generation only knows how to bury their heads in their phones, computers and social networks, so they don’t have a childhood like the previous generation. However, the main reason why children lose their childhood is probably because of studying.

My husband and I do not know whether the knowledge we cram for exams will help our child have a good future or not. But we are more worried about the impact on his physical and mental health.

I hope my child will go to school and work so that he will be better off than his parents in the future, but I worry that with the current pressures, he will not have enough health to be a worker, let alone do something more important.

As a parent, I hope that there will soon be a change, a truly reasonable reform so that each exam is no longer a nightmare for students and parents. We know that “if you don’t know, you have to ask; if you want to be good, you have to study,” but studying regardless, studying at the expense of your health and childhood just to get good grades is meaningless.

Hoang Oanh (Parent)

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