Science class test 1: A bit of an utter clusterfuck

[kitchenutensil]

Monday, I ran the first class test I'd prepared for my kids, and the results were terrible. Out of 147, only 30-something reached the government's minimum pass mark of 30%, only 24 of those reached the school's goal of 40%, and a mere 6 scraped over the 60% mark, my personal minimum requirement. Even the kids who were trying to cheat (my system

Comments

Captain Cynic to the rescue.

[anonymous]

What? Do you think they let you bypass a year of studying because the job was going to be easy? Did you think the academic marks in the townships were bad just because, you know, the teachers were idiots? That you were the first bright idealist to try his hand at this?

I'm seriously wondering what you were expecting? Because it doesn't seem to have anything to do with what I assumed the reality down there was.

Re: Captain Cynic to the rescue.

[kitchenutensil]

Of course I knew it would be tough. I certainly don't expect to fix everything overnight. In fact, my expectations are already much lower than they were a couple months ago. But it still comes as a serious kick in the nads when NOTHING I teach gets through to them. I see no reason why they should be incapable of doing this work, and I'm not aware of any major failings in my teaching ability. In fact, I've received nothing but praise so far, from every non-student who's witnessed my classes, which just makes this total failure even more of a shock.