Dear Students: The Final Isn't Final
By Crystal (Brim) Cleveland - FF/S
“I just have to survive through finals—just cram all that in my head and remember it for one week…then I can live again and be happy.”
Yes. I’ve heard those words floating through my classroom and down the hallways as students ramp up for what seems like an insurmountable couple of weeks each semester. If you’ve had these thoughts, this is a totally normal response to a high-pressure situation—you are not superhuman! It feels like finishing final exams is like finishing the race, crossing the line. It’s not the thoughts students have or even their (out-of-the ordinary) behaviors that define who they are as scholars during finals. It is how they respond to their performance (not the letter grade) after the crazy settles, once they’ve resumed sleeping again and have vegged out on a least two days of Netflix.
See, the final wasn’t final. The defining moment comes two weeks later when students return to campus with a fresh perspective, dying to see their friends and secretly missing their school routines. This is a chance to respond to their final exam performance by reflecting, instead of measuring their self-worth against a number; it is about cultivating the understanding that no one person knows everything and that curiosity and a passion for growing are the traits of great scholarship.
What did I do well on this assessment—what skills have I mastered after one semester?
What specific information do I still not understand?
What are the exact things I am going to do to get better?
What skill do I not perform well?
Before we start building on last semester, we spend week one analyzing our finals and writing self-reflections. This is our "Action Plan"—we’ve identified our strengths and weakness and they inform our goals for a new semester. Of course we write good goals (hear my students groan and recite): specific and measurable.
Dear students, I leave you with this: Your grade isn’t the end of the story. That exam wasn’t the finish line—it doesn’t define you. It was just a mile marker on the highway of life, of learning. What defines you is how you respond right now. Get tough. Be resilient and I promise…you will go further in life than getting perfect grades could ever take you. Love learning and growing—that’s life’s truest race that never ends.
