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As a teacher I can't imagine or remember very many students coming up to me and saying "I'm really looking forward to the test tomorrow." Sure, a few "A" students may indeed find testing a positive challenge, but definitely not the vast majority of learners. So what happened?

While measurement and evaluation are key components of the learning process, the stress and worry that students feel when preparing for and taking exams is completely unnecessary. Of course, a certain amount of nervousness and anticipation is normal and even useful. But do people really do better when they worry about things or when they focus on the task at hand?

We have created an educational environment where students fear and dread being tested on what they're supposed to learn. Imagine students being excited to find out what they've absorbed in the classroom and interested in understanding in what areas they need to improve. 

Seriously, visualize students eager to take exams because the negative stigma of not knowing has been lifted. The labels of being slow, a "C" student, a nonlearner, etc. no longer apply, at all.

An educator I once worked with told me that tests shouldn't be meant to prove what a person knows, but to improve. I can't imagine many many teachers or children actually looking at it that way. What a difference it would make. 

Clearly, a lot of our expectations for our educational system are cultural. We're very often a binary, right/wrong society. Right answers are rewarded and much easier to measure than understanding and potential. Wrong answers are, well, they're just "wrong". 

While not easy, I believe teachers and parents need to encourage children to develop a sense of positive anticipation about their learning. I think most children have this at first and then it often gets stifled after a couple of years in school because our system has always been set up to see how "smart" or "dumb" we are.

It's not about saying, "Hey, don't worry about it", or "Shake it off, you'll do better next time", or "You need to study harder". If as an educator or parent you actively encourage young people to see testing as an opportunity, and mean it, then the Sword of Damocles need not hang menacingly over them before each exam.