I resisted temptation today. Mostly.

It is exam making time at the school where I work and this creates an odd dilemma for those of us responsible for making exams. Do we stick with what worked merely recycle what we used last year (aka get lazy) or do we try to make a new test (aka rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic.)?

To be more specific, I don’t want to use too much of last year’s exam because students who took it are still roaming about the school with copies of last year’s exam. On occasion we find loose copies floating around the classrooms. However, because much of the material we’re teaching is the same as the year before it’s hard to come up with something new other than change last year’s “True” answer to “False” and reword a couple questions.

In my case I usually end up with a hybrid. I stick with what worked a few years ago and then reword a few questions. I also, on occasion, come up with new questions and change up the listening questions.

There’s then an commenting/editing session where colleagues teaching the same grade get a chance to read through the exam and hack out the bits they don’t like. Typical comments are “We didn’t teach that this year did we?” “I didn’t teach that. Were we supposed to teach that?” “Who taught you how to spell?” and “How drunk were you when you wrote this test?”

This is also the time when we offer to make the test easier or more difficult based on how annoying our students are being. On occasion, after a particularly bad class, I’ve been known to tell test a test writer that she can’t possibly make the test too difficult. I usually add the phrase “If one of us can pass it, it’s too easy.” Granted, I usually fall for the traps in the listening and fail that part anyway which complicates my instructions but I generally pass the rest. (Note: I wish I was joking.)

For a brief moment there’s a twinge of concern that we might be making life difficult for those students who try really hard in our attempts to punish the bad students.

But that moment ends fairly quickly and the test gets harder.

June has come and its arrival was marked by one of those days.

For one of those days in June, though, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

First the weather was stuck somewhere between “humid” and “liquid”. Luckily it was reasonably cool and I wasn’t as sweaty as I could have been by the time I got to the station and to work. This meant my forearms only stuck to my papers and notebooks for about 20 minutes after I started working.

Second, for reasons I don’t fully understand, the school where I work has decided to lock the air conditioners at 26 Celsius (or just under 79 Fahrenheit). This wouldn’t be so bad except the ACs don’t run enough to dehumidify properly, the students get sleepy and I, well, I just stop caring because my forearms are sticking to my papers and notebooks.

Third, perhaps because of the changing weather and air pressure and the current pressure to produce exams, I find myself experiencing what can only be described as “blind” or “game concentration” where my focus on what I’m doing keeps me from focusing on what I should be doing.

In today’s case that meant working on my exams instead of going to class. I looked up from my project to see that it was 11:55 and my brain process went something like “Wow, look at the time. Luckily I have time to work before I have to be at class at at 11:45. Cool. Wait. Crap!”

I got to class and was surprised to see my better bad class sitting in their chairs and ready to go. I was also surprised that most of them worked the rest of the period. Hell, I was being irresponsible, I couldn’t exactly ask them to be responsible. (Note: Officially I was taking an important phone call so that may have made me appear more responsible than I was.)

During lunch, for some reason, every surface I touched was messy and I had to wash my hands three times.

Later I spent several minutes cursing auto-format before realizing I was working on the wrong section and had to hit Ctrl + Z about 30 times and start over.

Despite all that, I managed to finish my exams and get some other work done. However, the way things went today, the exams probably didn’t save correctly or the computer will crash. Or, I actually did mess them up.

June has come, which means optimism is dead.

Today’s post is a split post about gadgets and stuff.

Smartphones:
One of the current issues we are dealing with at the school where I work is about how smartphones should be used in the class. In the junior high, students are not allowed to have their cellphones turned on. If a student gets caught with a live cellphone, we are supposed to confiscate the phone and turn it over the homeroom teacher who metes out the proper punishment.

In high school it’s more complicated. Students are allowed to have phone and the dilemma becomes how to use them in class. Right now the most common use is as replacements for both paper and electronic dictionaries. Some teachers allow their use (me, with some controls) others don’t like them at ll.

In my case I set a time limit. Students can use the phone for two minutes. I’m trying to prevent them from using translators. Not only is this lazy, but the English is often bad.

For example, after a couple trips through a translator “I don’t like eating too much pasta but I can’t stop eating pizza.” becomes “I do not like it too much to eat pasta, but I can not stop eating pizza.” “I like to watch tv after school but I don’t like to watch it on Sunday because I have to do my English homework.” becomes “I like to watch TV after school, so I have to do my English homework, I do not like to see it on Sunday.”

In such cases I usually mark the sentence with a question mark and the explanation that it’s not really English.

(Note: It’s also understood that if I catch them playing a game or texting I will own their phone for a few days.)

Small and Light:
For the teachers the battle is over CD players and it’s quite a cutthroat battle.

The school has a small allotment of CD working CD players and an even smaller allotment of light and easy to carry ones. This leads to shameless hoarding. Teachers will walk in to school, set down their bags and grab the smallest CD player available, even if they won’t need it for a couple hours. This is done by both men and women. In fact, I’ve seen large, athletic men practically race each other to the shelf to grab the smallest available CD player.

Illicit deals are made where Teacher A agrees to pass the small CD player to Teacher B. Teacher C hides a small one under her desk. Teacher D takes a large CD player and then complains for a while about how heavy it is.

This has prompted a lot of teachers to acquire their own small CD players. Personally, I’m hoping most of them do because that will leave the school CD players for me. Also, I tend to grab the heaviest one anyway because I consider it the gentlemanly thing to do.

I then get my worst student to carry it back to the office.