Finals

M1 finals in the assembly hall 

It's that time of year again. Friday marked the last day of instruction, and today was the first day of final exams. The students will come to school to take their tests on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Tuesday and Thursday are study days. The students will stay home on those days and we will have an awesome and low-key day at work grading exams and marking "blue books." Proctoring exams is tedious and boring. This morning I was assigned to the M1 class, which meets to take their exam downstairs from my office in the school's assembly hall. There wasn't much for me to do since there were five Thai teachers there with me (two teachers are assigned to monitor each class, but the three M1 homerooms take the exams together). On the upside, the school supplied sodas for the teachers while we waited.

working on a blue book

In the afternoon I began calculating my grades. Not all of my classes have taken their finals yet, but there is still plenty for me to do. I didn't used to like blue books. It's a little frustrating that we don't use computers to record our grades, but in the past year the ledger-keeping has grown on me. There's a process that we have to go through to finalize our grades. First we have to transfer our own class grades from our personal grade books to the official departmental blue book. After that we will have a departmental mark check. During that time all of the English teachers will trade blue books and check each other's calculations to make sure the grades have been summed correctly. Next week we will have the official school mark check, where every teacher meets in the teachers' dining room to check the blue books of the other departments.

We will still come to work next week, but there won't be much to do besides finalizing grades. This semester has felt much more rushed and chaotic than last year. I'm not really sure why, since I feel like I know way better what I'm doing this year. I'm teaching a more rigorous schedule with harder classes this year. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to this term holiday. Last year I went to Hong Kong. I've got something special planned for this break as well.