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Exam Time

I am most anxious for liberties for our country, but I place as a prior condition the education of our people so that our country may have an individuality of its own and make itself worthy of liberties.

Philippine National Hero - Dr. José Rizal

7th March 2006
Dr. José Rizal is a cool guy, by the way. He was executed by the Spanish in 1896 for his writings, among other things. A very noble person.

Well, this is it. All my hard work comes to a head. March the 3rd and 7th saw all the grades in Pulao Elementary taking their final exams. There were several students in all my grades that I was concerned about.

Karen, from Grade 6, was probably my biggest concern. She is about 14 years old and really struggles with her math. She is already repeating the sixth grade. I spent about 15 minutes with her the other day teaching her her one times tables. 1 x 1 = 1, 1 x 2 = 2, 1 x 3 = 3 and so on. She eventually saw how it was done and a rare smile spread across her face. I say "rare smile" because she seems like a really sad girl. She always sits by herself in class and doesn't seem to have many friends. She is also one of the few pupils in the school who does not like having her photo taken.

The Extra Tuition
As previously mentioned, I spent a few weekends doing some extra tuition for the kids. I had an absolute blast! I'll have to update my Top 10 List sometime and include "Teaching on the Weekend". Only about one quarter of the students turned up, but those that did turn up were very keen to learn. Which all made for a very enjoyable experience. I was so in my element. I was joking and kidding around and teaching all at the same time, and I knew the kids learnt lots of good stuff.

Some students just can't help by give the answers to other peoples' questions. (I'm looking at you, Mark Dumancas.) One of the things I lucked upon during the weekend tuition was to get the students who gave the answers to other peoples' question to stand up. Repeated infringement saw them standing on their chair and then, for the really bad infringes, standing on their desk. It all added to the fun.

Fun. Education. Education was fun. Might I have stumbled upon the Holy Grail of Education and made education fun...?

Responsibility
I was understandably nervous before the exams. Had I done enough work? Were my teaching skills good enough? Was the English/Ilongo language barrier too much? Could I have spent more time with certain students so that they could pass?

All these are good questions. I think, at the end of the day, it all comes down to Group Responsibility versus Individual Responsibility. I did all I could do for the Group. I worked hard and ran many tutorial groups, none of which I was obliged to do. I could of spent even more time with certain students, such as Karen, to dramatically increase their chances of passing. But I think this is where Individual Responsibility comes in. The students are all responsible for ensuring that they pass their own exams. I can help them, but it is ultimately their responsibility.

The Exams Themselves
All the grades had exams on the 3rd of March. Grade three and grade six also had extra exams on the 7th of March. All the subjects (Math, English, Filipino and so on) were held on the same day. The students had three and a half hours to do between five and seven exams. All the exams were multi-choice.

All teachers, including me, were assigned schools to invigilate^* at to prevent favoritism and cheating. It didn't work.

Here is what happened at the school I was at. None of it was done with any embarrassment or shame.

Handing students the answers
There was a student in Grade One who attended very few classes. A student teacher wrote the answers to the exam and gave it to the student.

The student was too dense to realize what was given to him though and didn't use it. I doubt the student will go on to work out the Universal Theory of Everything is. Then again, Albert Einstein was a very poor student...
Actively encouraging bright students to tell the slow students what the answers were.
Unsupervised lunch breaks
The students were free to discuss the exams as much as they liked during the lunch break
Writing Answers on Students Forearms
During the Grade Six exams, there was only one teacher from another school supervising exams. This made it even easier to cheat. This is how the process went.
- Teacher X from School A is supervising at School B.
- Teacher X texts the answers to her buddies at School A.
- Teacher Y receives the text and waits for a student to take a bathroom break.
- Teacher Y intercepts the student and writes the answers on the students forearm.
- Student returns to the classroom a happy man.
One of the memories I will take away with me will be the sight of a teacher scribbling the answers on a students arm...

Hmm. I'm sure this sort of thing happened all across the country and was not unique to the school I was at. The teachers told me that they were doing it so the students would not have to repeat the grade. Meh. I'm not sure how much this will be benefit the kids long term.

In a way, it was a little disheartening. I tried to teach the students, but it didn't really matter as they were given the answers anyway... Meh.

So, exams may have been passed, but I'm not sure any learning actually happened.

^* "Invigilated" means supervising of exams. A flash word I learnt from Neil Copeland. Thanks Neil!

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(c) 2005 and 2006 Malcolm Trevena.
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