Friday, November 16

How things have changed.  My offsider and I are sitting in this classroom, supervising two students in a Health Studies exam.  There should be a third student, but he hasn’t turned up.  So, there are just 2, even though there are 95 students in the college registered to take this exam.  The other 9-odd are elsewhere on this floor, in larger groups, probably of 30 or more.

The intention of the exams has changed over the years.  In olden days, it’s fair to say that exams were designed to weed out the students who didn’t know their stuff but not all students are built the same and there were casualties: people who missed out through disability, illness or whatever.  Now the focus is on making allowances for individual differences and ensuring they have every opportunity to achieve their best.

My two students have managed to convince the examiners that they need more time and they have been allocated an extra thirty minutes, so this exam will run for 3 hours 30 minutes, plus 15 minutes ‘reading time’ – a very long afternoon.  There could be any number of reasons for this ‘accommodation’ as they call it but I’m told the process is pretty strict.  The supervisors are not given the reasons.  We’ve also been asked to sit them as close to the door as possible; again, we don’t ask why, we just comply.

Some students might be allowed to use a computer rather than writing by hand.  In fact, there’s a student in the next classroom, working with a computer, on his own with a supervisor.  Others might be allocated a ‘reader’ to help with the paper, there might also be special conditions for wheelchairs.  The ‘scuttlebutt’ is that 91 students from the college have been given accommodations.  That might seem a lot and, no doubt, there are some dodgy ones among them but the current thinking is it’s better to be too generous than not generous enough.

I’m reminded of other ways that things have changed when I look at the boy sitting in front of me – no uniform, of course, as this is a senior college and not attached to a traditional high school.  He’s wearing a cap, with an incomprehensible logo.  It’s on back to front, covering his thick mop of unkempt hair.  That’s at least three infringements of the rules I might have applied two decades ago.

He has on a khaki t-shirt with a slogan on the back, GOD SAVE THE OUTLAWS, and a rectangle containing a large X and three horizontal lines.  This raises more questions than it answers. Why is the slogan, etc on the back?  Who are the outlaws?  Why do they need saving?  Is the rectangle supposed to be a flag?

In any case, the shirt is vaguely para-military and vaguely subversive.  In the old days he would have been sent home to change.  He also has a bag of jelly beans with him, in open view on the desk.  We can’t have that!  They might give him a little burst of energy when he needs it most.  We weren’t allowed jelly beans when I was at school.  Oh, for the good old days!