Wherein the Shoes Get Wet

Throughout my schooling, I have never really lost sleep for an assignment, never pulling an all-nighter, never really awakening early than was my want for finishing homework. Nor have I lost sleep on account of concern for an approaching exam either quiz or test. And so it was an entirely new experience for me to find, on Thursday night and well into Friday morning, that I was tossing back and turning forth with a vast restlessness. And I was the one giving the exam. I found myself wondering, if it was too short, if the students would be insulted by its ease, what to do about the ones who weren’t there, if after the first group took it they would swiftly tell their friends what was on it. Then I began to worry that my students were stressing about the exam and that perhaps I should have reassured them that a quiz is only a way for me to gauge where the class as a whole stands. Well, I will sleep soundly from now on, because out of about 110 quizzes only two aced it. The average grade was between 8 and eleven with a shocking number of 0-4.5. Here is the quiz:

Vocabulary, 20 questions, each worth .5 points

Answer a question in the negative with and without a contract, 1 point for each answer

Complete the sentences: Yesterday…Today…Tomorrow… each worth 2 points

Total 20 points.

Not exactly hard especially because on Wednesday, as a class, we reviewed vocabulary through a series of games. On Thursday we reviewed contractions, and we are always doing tense work.

So this has come as rather a striking blow. I really thought that things were going smoothly. Whenever I stroll about the class for the aural part of the class period the students can answer the questions, sort of. I suppose that I will have to start assigning more homework, but it is really rather impossible to grade 110 assignments every night, and just checking for completion does not help the students. I’ll come up with something I suppose. On another side, it was interesting to see the way that the students wrote out the exam. The majority section off the paper with an inch margin on the right side and then draw another line perpendicular to that sectioning off an inch and a half of the top. In the right hand corner they write their names and section. It is rather elegant. Then in the upper left corner they put the date. These students, let it be known, love rulers. If there is even a hint of a chance of using a ruler they leap at it. I suppose it is because it allows maximum space control, for as much as they love rulers, they hate to tear out paper from their cahiers. That is why I gave them the paper for the quiz. Providing the paper also provided, I thought, a way to convey the import of the occasion. I also wore my suit coat and waited for them inside. You will recall that normally I wait until the students are all inside before swinging forth and brandishing my finger. A finger that now, upon their receipt of their quizzes and grades, I fear that they may want to cut off and nail to the chalkboard.

Concluding the day was a tremendously beautiful rain storm. I walked through it with all these quizzes under my jacket and tucked nightly beneath my arm. A hen would not drape her wing more protectively over her chick than I did those quizzes. Nor did they become wet, rather I did. Great sopping squelches rose from my shoes and my pants clung to my legs under a patina of dirt--it is hard to tell if the rain itself is dirty (unlikely) or if the wet pants grab dirt to them (likely). I arrived back to my castle and dried off. It was a rather purifying walk, though I felt a great deal like Hortense in Bleak House when she removes her shoes and strides through the landscape and the wet on the grass is described as being like blood. This was especially so, because the dirt here is of a rather sanguinary character. And like Hortense, I had been slighted--though in a much different manner than Lady Dedlock's insult.

Make sure to look at the next post for a slew of pictures of Ngaoundere.