I have the most uptight
and yet most rip-roaringly hilarious students this year. They will be lackadaisical about doing
homework, then damn-near crap themselves when grades come out. I have some who do absolutely nothing at all
in class, then completely ace (and I mean decimatingly so) the exams and
writing assignments. To say they’re
ultra-picky about every single fraction of a point would be an understatement.
I suppose it’s better to
have them too concerned about their term-end grades than completely indifferent
… right?
 |
| (I want this tissue box!) |
Until I realize I need
more boxes of tissues.
As the end of the term
approaches, it is time to give a whopper of an exam. I choose a teleplay we’ve read in class, one
that we’ve work-sheeted to near-death, and one that synthesizes the few notes
we have on same-old-same-old concepts, like plot and theme and conflict. It’s all old paper to them, and they have the
notes, study guides, and review sheets ready to go. They know the material when I ask them
pre-test questions. They make
flashcards. They seem ready.
After the test is over, I
hear both “That was easy!” and “That was hard!” so I figure it must be a
reasonably fair assessment. The writing
portion is a two-day, open-book, take-home, workshop-in-class-the-day-before-it’s-due
assignment. Completely fail-safe … if
just they would do what I ask them to do.
(Therein usually hides the dilemma.)
Naturally, the grades are
all over the map when it’s said and done.
They know it, and I know it. But
truly, it’s all going to be okay. This
is term one of seventh grade. Life
really does go on after and in spite of it.
At least, someone old like me knows this. To these kiddos, though, life can be all
about that almighty numerical qualifier.
This is where it starts to
get comical.
I am about to hand back
the exams, when suddenly the entire class gets up, first one at a time, then a
couple together, then in small droves.
They descend upon the lone tissue box like radiation victims grabbing
for iodine. “Don’t hand the tests out
yet,” they implore, “we have to get ready.”
Ready? For what?
I look around the room,
and all of the students are holding tissues to their eyes. They’re ready now. Ready for the waterworks. Ready to cry over their grades.
Me? I bust out laughing.
In the decades I have been
teaching, I’ve never seen anything quite like this. So, I do what anyone in my teaching shoes
would do.
I torture them.
Yup, I wave the stack of
tests in front of them and tell them that maybe I should wait until tomorrow to
return them. This brings gasps of horror. One girl almost cries over the mere thought. Another student agrees that it would be
better to wait. A small group attacks
him verbally, demanding he stifle himself so I’ll hand out the exams.
I cannot help myself. It’s impossible for me to fathom how wound-up
they are over their averages. Part of me
is happy they’re so conscientious; part of me is disgusted by their attachment
to numerical validation; part of me, I’ll be honest, is peeing my pants
watching them all sit there with white tissues pasted to their faces.
In the end, I return the
test scores, and the kiddos see that they did rather well, some remarkably
so. One young man yells out “Hurrah,”
tossing his unused tissue into the air like a cheerleader’s pompom flying out
overhead. They laugh, a couple grimace,
but, for the most part, they have survived.
No one died from getting
an average score. No one will be beaten
for bringing home a 97% instead of a 100% (at least, I hope not). No one will be denied admittance to Harvard
for a grade seven test on The Twilight
Zone episode “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.”
I still need a new box of
tissues, though. Guess I’ll be investing
a dollar in their education. After
forcing them all to hysteria (ala Rod Serling), it’s the least thing I can do
for the little cherubs.
