I am so happy and grateful for being able to entertain myself at home.

Peace is the break between two wars.

Krishnamurti

To-do list

• Just Dance ✅
• Meditate ½
• Sort CDs ½
• Finish grading files ✅
• Read a lot of Midnight’s Children ½

Dancing got us revved up this morning and I set to finishing marking all the exams and completing the files at around 5 pm. I remained calm even whilst trying to navigate the nonsense that gets sent out to us teachers. I even realised that marking the exams doesn’t really mean anything. It’s a strange system that sets the teacher to write the exam because it can’t be compared with anything. There needs to be a standard exam and defined curriculum to work with – it’s a huge waste of time for teachers year after year after year. But, whatever – I did it – it’s done (at least until someone tells me I have to do more).

Whilst marking the exams I think they were quite well done in that (with only a few exceptions) they accurately reflected the standard of the students. Someone will look at the results and will get upset because the scores are so low. They could say that the teacher is no good, to which can countered with, then why let the teacher write the exam?

I can see Ray, who taught these kids last semester, was very lenient with his marks and that’s fine – no one has the same standard. The three days I’ve spent filling in grades will be looked over and modified so that no one fails so that all entries can just be filled with random numbers and, indeed, that is what many teachers do.

I’m aware that someone will likely say something to me about my grading and I will have to control myself and try to be as diplomatic as possible. I don’t know how well I can handle that.

I’m always surprised at the things people come up with when they have different ideas about how things should be done.