And so the English exam results were announced today, and the traditional ballyhoo about whether the exams were getting easier ensued. In the midst of all the reporting, it's often forgotten that continually surrounding students with the news that the exams they've knocked their collective pan out to undertake – and pass, hopefully – are viewed as being somehow 'easy'. It seriously devalues their work and achievement, and it pisses me right off.

So well done, then, to the various examining and qualification authorities in the country for taking out a full-page ad in the national press, congratulating the students and showing some examples of questions from this year's exams. These will hopefully go some way towards making just a few people realise what students today go through.

Now, the way the papers are marked and the levels at which the grades are awarded are much more subtle and contentious matters, but that's what has to be decided: what are we testing kids for? Is it more important to get the right answer ('1+1=2') or to be able to articulate how you think you'd go about solving a problem ('I have one of something, and if I add another one of something – look, I can show you with my fingers – I'll have a different number of things, which I think may be three') but possibly getting the answer wrong?

Because ultimately, society has to decide – very abstract phrase, I know – whether they want to equip its next-generation leaders with a bunch of facts, or with the tools and mental models which allow them to tease problems out.

It's an question I don't have an answer to; as with so much, the solution will probably lie somewhere between the two extremes, but all too often in the vox pops and in the opinion pieces in ought-to-know-better media outlets, we hear mock outrage that today's students get marks for the wrong answer (but for having displayed working out that got them three quarters of the way there) or that today's students couldn't tell you when the Battle of Naseby was fought.

The teaching of history is a particularly vexed topic, I think. While my parents were still of the generation that was taught reams of battle dates, I was taught how to evaluate sources, examine context for evidence of bias, and construct reports based on my research. These are skills I use every working day of my life, and which help me analyse news coverage of contemporary events. But while I think these are important – vital – skills, I do think I missed out on learning historical context that would tell me more about the geopolitical make-up of this country, this continent and this world. Perhaps some time should be given over in the citizenship lessons that pupils undertake today to make them aware of the history that leads up to this now, while History (capital H) is used to teach students how to interpret past and present events.

A big, bellowy hurrah, then, to all students who opened envelopes today to glimpse their future. How would you have done with one of this year's maths questions?