Theo of Arabia: Part 24

It’s Sunday morning, the beginning of our last week. As always, we gather by the bus parked in front of the entrance of our resident and enjoy the morning sun and fresh air. We all are in a good mood, because very soon all will come to an end. In less than a week we’ll be gone.

Today is exam day and we eagerly await what will happen in less than an hour. What is meant? In each test, the test sheet leaked out and the students knew the questions a day before the actual test. At first we thought it was one of us who gives the students the test sheet so they can prepare all the answers, but unfortunately we could never prove that, even though signs were there. However, we have found out that one of the managers, one in a high position must be the one who provides the students with the test sheets. How? Simple: After composing the test sheet, it is sent to him via email. We print out a version and bring it downstairs to one of the clerks, who photocopies it and locks it away in a safe until the day of the test. Only two people have access to the safe. So who can it be? This time we prepared a trap for him. We have prepared two different exam sheets. One has been passed via email to this double agent and one remained with us. We took our version home, printed it out 200 something times and put it in a bag. In the safe is the other version that won’t be used. Now, one of us, and I swear I have no idea who, carries the exam sheet in his bag. In addition to that, we demanded and pushed it through, that our students won’t sit the exam in their classrooms as usual, but all together in a large hall with all the teachers there and some security people. Plus, they will have to leave their mobile phones outside.

This will be fun! We get into the bus with a big grin on our faces and the bus disappears in the bright light of the morning sun.

When we arrive at work, we go as usual to the kitchen for coffee and tea. Then some of us go to the hall to see if everything is ready according to our plan and the rest of us go to the classrooms. We’re not going to our classes. We have switched with the colleagues, so each of us is with a different group. We sit and wait patiently until someone who has the role of the messenger knocks and gives us the signal to leave the classroom and the building. As soon as we leave the building, security guards gather around us and accompany us like prisoners, to the examination hall. There is someone who receives the students, takes away all their mobile phones and leads them to their seats. The exam sheets are handed out and the tension rises immeasurably. Now two things happen: You can read the sheer horror on the faces of the students, and you can see a very big smile and grin on the faces of the teachers. The students look at each other in disbelief trying to understand what is going on. We again ask them to focus on their paper and not to look in any direction, because we will be forced to take away their paper and mark it with a zero.

The first minutes pass and it takes some time until the students start writing. Teachers, security guards and even the manager of the place patrol up and down and make sure that no one cheats or talks to their neighbours. In case of violation, their paper is taken away and they can go home.

Half an hour or so later, when some have given up and others were caught cheating and/or talking and sent home and the rest is sweating over their papers, some teachers, including myself, take out our cameras and start taking photographs of the students.

When the exam is finished and the last students leave the examination hall, we relax and go over to the cafeteria for lunch. As all the students have gone home, only the kitchen staff are there and it’s very peaceful and quiet. The cafeteria is ours! We go round and take some photos of the place, of us and the kitchen staff. After lunch we have to start marking all the papers.

Correcting and marking the papers proves to be quite funny and entertaining. Some students have written very funny answers, like the one who answered the question: What did you have for dinner last night? With the following: I had Shahinur for dinner. Shahinur is the name of a Bengali teacher. Hmm…

This fun brings trouble with it. Because the double agent who provides the students with the exam papers feels that he has been fooled, he comes full of anger into our project manager’s office and demands to have a word with him. Because the double agent has to hide that he is a double agent and can’t therefore show all his anger, he talks diplomatic bullshit and tries to find out what happened and why we did something without letting him know. Well, our project manager tells him that last night we thought that some of the questions were too difficult and decided to change them and make it easier for the students. Then we played a bit around with the order of the exercises. Due to the fact that not all the questions were changed, but only very few, the double agent has to swallow his anger.

So this day ends with a big grin on our faces.

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Damn, are the questions difficult!