Being careless is a big sin

Often I hear moms telling me that their kids are SOOoOO careless in their test papers that had they checked their answers before passing them up, they would have scored high marks.

And what do I have to say to that? "ohh......" *roll eyes 1 full round and another* Of course I rolled eyes at the back of my head.

Isn't that, to use my kids words, lame!

Why are mothers so concerned about getting high marks all the freaking time. Why does carelessness get to them so much? Weren't we all making careless mistakes all our lives? Is it because they don't want the kids to end up like them?

To me, I think exams is the test of skills, knowledge and their attitude itself.

The other day, the tutor for my kids summoned me to her and told me that didi told her mommy taught him not to write the numbers down when doing arrangement of words. She said that is not correct, and see, if he had not missed out on some words in his recent chinese test paper, he would have gotten more marks. What a waste, she said. And ended her lecture with a big sigh.

Aiyo, I myself am not so concerned, why la she's making such a big fuss over the few loss of marks. Then again, it's all good for me as it shows she's concerned about them performing in their tests and not just doing her job day in day out.

The thing is, they need to learn from their mistakes and how they TRY not to repeat them. And if they do not know how to solve a problem, they should be learning how to do it. THAT is my main concern. NOT over some couple of marks.

That said, I still look over their papers and pointed to their silly mistakes, a bit of admonishments and a meaningless advice "don't be so careless again, ok?" and off they go and play. But I won't go round and tell everyone "oh, they actually can score full marks, but oh so careless...." Chill....