Final exams are around the corner. You enter school and you can see a perplexed look on each face. Teachers start to look like zombies. Final exam time is the most hectic time of the year for us, more than it is for students. Teachers have an endless number of things to prepare and plan. They must move according to the checklist to ensure that every task is completed before the deadline. Making question papers is a mammoth task, followed by the many revision worksheets that need to be prepared and sent out and not to forget the target of completing the syllabus amidst the hustle of the numerous school events.
Our students don’t know it, but exam time make us more anxious than it makes them. We constantly nag them during class revisions, but that is due to the fear that the child has still not learnt the portion. We are worried about their levels of preparation, their capacity to attempt the answers properly and their ability to come out with great scores.
On the day of the exams, we incessantly pray that all goes well.
Finally it is time to face the truth. As we sit down to correct the answer sheets, every question that is attempted well is like a grain of sugar added to a cup of tea. Once the entire set is done, if all goes well, the teacher can sit back and savour the well deserved tea.
The day of the result is a day of celebration for teachers much more than students or parents. They rejoice not just in the result of one or two kids but all the children they taught. It is the most fulfilling sight, to see our students climb the next rung on the ladder of education. Words will never be enough to describe this feeling.
When the session comes to an end, we pause. But soon enough, it is time to start preparing for the next batch of students who will now come into our care. And thus, it begins.
- The reader is a teacher based in Dubai
