First Test

In the past two days there were many moments of self realization and self recognition. There were certain aspects of my nature that I did not know existed. We had decided to keep a short test today on whatever we had taught in the past few days. To make things simpler and ensure maximum learning of the students, we spent the entire class yesterday revising decimal multiplication and division by multiples of ten only.  We wanted to make everything clear so as to minimize the scope of error in the paper. 

It was yesterday that I felt that immense desire for these children to succeed and do well in whatever they were doing. I wanted them to accomplish even that simple task of a test to their maximum potential so much that I was willing to explain each and everything to these children all over again, just to make things crystal clear. I could feel the same sense of emotions from my fellow intern as well. The class was spent in doing some tricky questions, which required perfect basics of the topics and revision of everything done till date.

On returning back home, came the task of preparing the paper. Our first paper to be given to the kids. We did not want it to be a cakewalk, nor did we want it to be too difficult to crack, it shouldn't demoralize the students, nor should it give them a false picture of their amount of knowledge. It was at this moment when I realized my first weakness. I wanted to put in all simple questions and let the kids grab all the marks with open arms. Initially I wouldn't agree on putting even a single "tricky" question in the paper, however thanks to my fellow intern who saw things in a more practical way, we managed to create a balanced paper with just a few tough questions here and there.

Now one might wonder at this point the reason as to why I am elaborating so much on a simple fifteen mark paper that would be completed by the students in not even half an hour. This is so because it was important for me. It was more of a test for me than them to check whether I have been able to help these students in any way in the past few days.

The next day (today) dawned bright and sunny. We entered the classroom and found the kids already seated. The things that might confuse them were explained just once more and the test was given. After great deliberation among ourselves, me and my co-intern had decided upon a time frame of one hour for the paper. As expected, most of them completed it before half an hour and were eagerly waiting for us to check and return back the papers there and then. No, this did not surprise me, not this time. 

To my utmost happiness, two children scored full (one of them actually missing a full by 0.5 marks, but being a bit lenient, that much could be exempted I hope) and the average that students scored seemed good enough as well. Some of them lost marks due to sheer careless mistakes, but then it happens to the best of us at some point or the other. There still were some who were having difficulty in grasping a few basic concepts. 

Maths is a subject that can be understood only through practice and that is what we intend upon making these children do. We tried our level best and would continue to do so and just hope to make ourselves more clear this time.