In which Marieke gets all preachy and shizzle

Do you remember when you wrote your b’s and d’s backwards? When your dad was the strongest man you knew? When you intentionally made your teacher love you when you wrote ‘’Madame ...... is a kind girl.’’ on your exam? Well, I’m reliving all those emotions right now. At the same time I’m experiencing the whole thing from the other side. I’m marking this terms exams and ‘’my kids’’ are almost making me cry. I’m only one class in, but man, they make me proud. Sure, some of them disappoint me (‘’I taught you this TWO MONTHS AGO.’’) but in general... Proud Mama over here guys!

Today, when I was walking around the classrooms, checking up on all 70 of my students doing their English exam at the same time, I knew which ones were struggling with what. I made sure that Michael knew what each question was saying. I knew that Stephanie was going to talk to her neighbour, that Bertha was going to panic and that Chris was going to be over-confident. I knew that I was going to feel sad when I saw them making mistakes and feel responsible each time they looked at me with their big, brown eyes, telling me they didn’t have a f-ing clue what a proper noun was. When Gilbert came to me after the exam to hold my hand and tell me that he was scared because he can’t spell, I asked him how old he was. He’s 12. (Boys here aren’t shy about wanting to hold their teachers hand. Most of them are going to marry me too.) I told him that this was one test, on one day, and that the score wasn’t going to change anything important. That everything was going to be fine, that I was going to write some nice comments on his test so his parents wouldn’t beat him too hard (It breaks my heart, but that is a real thing here.) and that he was smart and clever and funny. That is (almost) the exact same thing I told myself after my exams earlier this year and I’m nineteen. Those exams DID matter. But that is what you do after a bad exam, you pick yourself up. Or the crazy white lady they let volunteer at your school does it for you.

I didn’t tell him that he was unlucky. That he got the short end of the stick, not because of his dyslexia, but because he lived in a country where there were no funds to help out kids like him. The teachers do their best, but these kids are extremely lucky to even go to school and get an education. However flawed the system might be. The kids with learning disabilities fall behind, further and further each year, the average ones disappear in the crowd and act up for attention, only to get caned, and the super-brilliant ones stop working, because, what is the point? Everybody suffers in a way, different ways, but all those ways make me want to grab these kids and take them home and give them the attention, care and education they deserve.

But then, when I’m standing there in a classroom, looking at those kids, something pulls me back to reality and makes me realize that I have to stop feeling sorry for them. Laughter. Jokes. Brilliant ideas on how to fix their broken pens. Smart ways to steal my chalk. Funny plans on how to follow me back to ‘’No-way.’’ The fact that they say I live in No-way and ask me how I can drive a car when there are no ways. These kids are kids, and sometimes I have to stop being all sentimental (and honestly – a bit premenstrual) and shut up. Because in the end all I can do is smile, wink, mark their work, give them an extra sticker or draw a smiley face and make sure they know that crying over a test result is no use. Whether you are nine, twelve or nineteen.

So yes I’m marking. I’m almost done with class 3 and have to say that those little troublemakers surprised me! I feel an excellent average coming up. It’s pretty surreal to mark an exam I’ve fabricated myself – you’d almost think I know what I’m doing!