samedi 26 mars 2011

Writing and Giving Exams Continued…

Things turned around completely on Tuesday. I had to monitor some other teachers’ exams so that pretty much meant no stress for me. While doing this I had the chance to grade my own.

When I arrived in the morning I saw the secretary laying out the tests to be given first, so I told her I wanted to see my English exam today before the exam is given tomorrow. She can’t understand English so we cannot communicate very well so she went and found the headmaster to talk to me. He tried to tell me to just wait till tomorrow, but I explained to him that I wanted to correct any mistakes in the test before the test so I may be better prepared than I was for my Math exam. Right after I said this, another teacher who was listening in chimed in with “We have a problem of economics here, and…” This same teacher kept telling me this the day before and finds himself to be very funny. I didn’t want to hear this again because I still hadn’t calmed down completely from the day before I guess so I blew up at him. “I know I that the school can’t afford it. I was told this twenty times yesterday. I just want to see what the secretary typed so I can correct any mistakes before we give it tomorrow.” He apologized after that. Then the headmaster said that I should be able to see it before I left today. This made me happy, but not as much as what happened next.

During the first exam the headmaster came and talked to me. He had the English exam that I had made with him as well as a calculation that he had done. He found that the cost of photocopying my exam was cheaper than he thought it would be and decided that was what they would do. My exam had been altered a little so it did have a couple of mistakes I had to fix as well as a mistake that I found I had made. I just needed to meet up with the secretary and use her computer to fix these problems.

After lunch I was ready to make this happen. I walked up her office and she wasn’t there. It was still lunch time so I went to the teachers’ room and worked on correcting exams. I waited an hour and went back up there and she still wasn’t there. I know that professionalism is a foreign concept for a lot of people here so I really shouldn’t expect her to be in her office as soon as lunch is over. I waited another hour and returned and she still wasn’t there, so I called the headmaster and asked him where she was and he told me he would call her. After that I returned to the teachers’ room and told the others who were there that I needed her and they suggested I go to her house. I didn’t know where she lived, but everyone else did so it wasn’t too hard to find. I started knocking on her door and I had to wait for about five minutes before she answered it. I could hear inside so I knocked more than once, this made me think of when I worked for the census, I would have waited there knocking as long as it took to get her to respond. She finally came out and she rubbed her eyes like she just woke up. She knew exactly what I wanted I didn’t even have to say anything. We went to her office and I made the corrections and left the test with her like the headmaster instructed me to do.

The next day my English exam was administrated without any problems. If the headmaster was trying to redeem himself to me, he did and more. Going through that bad experience on Monday was all made worthwhile by them taking me seriously on Tuesday.

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