Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

Yesterday I gave my astronomy special class student her “first” exam. I had actually forgotten all about our arrangement for her to have the exam after my 920am class. I guess it was because she didn’t consult on the topics as I thought she would.

Luckily I kept all the excess copies of my past exams from the previous terms in one envelope. It took me just a few minutes to find one on the constellations that had the same coverage as what I gave her. This is extremely fortunate considering I start the discussion on the constellations depending on what’s visible in the early evenings for the term in question, and I don’t give the exam after having taken up a specific number of star formations.

I was also able to get some questions on the zodiac calendar from the previous term. The calendar is easy enough to change questions and answer them that I don’t have to recycle questions as other teachers often do on last minute exams. These two sheets I just stapled together so that she won’t answer the unrelated sections on the back of each.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when she still insisted on using the sliding pieces of paper to answer the calendar questions. What did surprise me though was that she used another piece of paper to write down the columns for the calendar questions, even though spaces for that were already provided in the test paper. And she submitted that “scratch” paper also.

In my 230pm class, I called them to the teacher’s table one by one, letting them sign for the field trip ticket they received as well as giving them their exam results. I hadn’t finished with the distribution when one of the students I had already transacted with approached the table.

She was one of the few that got a very low score in the second long exam. She was concerned that she might not have a chance to pass in the course, so she didn’t want to waste anymore time attending if that was the case. What I didn’t expect was that she gave the excuse that she really wasn’t good in science.

A less understanding teacher would have been offended. After all, I was trying to make the lessons as entertaining for them as it was informative. If I hadn’t been able to pique her interest despite all my efforts, it was more of a testament to my failure than her resistance. But of course I didn’t react to it that way. I just kept it in storage for further evaluation in future dealings, most likely next term.

What did I tell her instead? That the second half of the term, unlike the first part which was mostly lectures, is more geared towards group classroom activities, and that in all probability, as long as she participates in all those dynamics, that she would receive a passing grade for the class.

A “1.0” or a “1.5” she asked. Yes, I said. An evolving experience teaching always is.

I only have a handful of tickets here now that I’m waiting for the students to pick up. Less than ten picked up theirs last night, but since these were those who lived between the school and the theme park, I didn’t want them to go out of their way today when they could just go straight there after a little inconvenience the night before.