I Feed On the Cries of Babes

It was another day of tests! I have discovered what some have perhaps suspected all along: teachers love giving tests. Well, I do. When you are sick it's very hard to keep up the energy required for teaching six to seven classes, as I do every day. Tests are things you can wind up and release.

That's not wholly true. In fact, a lot of work goes into testing on one or both ends. We don't make up these tests but we grade the writing and I spend a lot of time wrangling and going over things with the kids to try to get them to do their best. Today I got downright ornery with a kid who already speaks out of turn and off topic during class a lot. He was 10 minutes late, missed the review for the test and I had already begun timing them so left him to his lot. He utterly failed to answer the question. I am uncertain if being here for the prep would have helped but, either way, it was clear he was not paying attention (the question was on naming someone who helps in your community, his response was about some sort of league of street fighters he likes to watch and is almost identical to what he already wrote in his reading notebook for another assignment) and I assigned him an essay on writing three good reasons one should 1) listen to the teacher and 2) read the questions carefully on the exam!

I had to teach my most remedial class today. I spent the entire time working on writing sentences with them. I find it very difficult to tell whether the poor output of various students is laziness or stupidity and am now confronted with the question of whether discipline can in any way counter ignorance. This is not meant to imply that these kids are genuinely dumb, this is regards only to their English capabilities. In truth, I quite enjoyed it. I wish the lesson plans they laid out for us gave me more time to focus on weaknesses. Supposedly these kids also have a grammar and writing class taught by another instructor but their sentence writing is so weak I sincerely wonder what they are doing in that class. When they write sentences it often seems like a buckshot approach where, eventually, one of the sentences will make sense by sheer happenstance.

Ten points to the team who sends me a fainting couch! I've got the consumption something bad. Well, I'm not coughing up blood or anything, I just feel maddeningly snuffly. And cold. You know you're ill when standing over the tea kettle on an open gas flame and thinking "I'd better be careful not to catch my sleeves on fire" and then slowly move from caution to pondering the relative benefits to self immolation. Also, tea! Damned if I can get some reasonable (British or Indian) tea here for a reasonable amount and in separate tea bags.

The day wasn't all cruelty. To keep them coming back you have to randomly distribute pain and pleasure, right? I also handed out candy at the end of tests and, in particular, pleasantly surprised the hell out of some girl, who was stuck at school until nine working on a test, by dropping chocolates in her hands as she packed up to leave. I really like seeing people* enjoy life or pleasantly surprised (a do unto others sort of thing) and thusly one nice thing about my current job is that there are a lot of opportunities for that.

*By which I mean people of whom I approve. I have not gone wholly soft.