Some decades ago, an ethologist, Robert Ardrey, gained much exposure with the idea of the “territorial imperative”. His study of animal behaviour led him to the conclusion that the strongest drive in the beast was setting up its territory and marking the boundaries over which others of its kind must not cross unless prepared to bare tooth and claw. Ardrey’s thesis was that, as animals, we operate under this “territorial imperative”, the natural cause of conflicts and the basis for boundaries and property rights.
I teach English and mark it; my territory is marking. Ardrey got it wrong: there are no boundaries to this territory.
It should be done in the confines of four walls, but many times is not. Take a car park, for instance: it may not seem a desirable place in which to mark, but, on a Friday night, when you have been asked to drive a youth group to a mall in which they have disappeared for upwards of two hours to lurk, run around and play assorted evil games, there is a choice: does one stay inside the vehicle, positioned under as bright a light as possible, with the interior lights sucking away at the battery, or does one roam around the fabricated cement maze, doing nothing in particular? “Oh, but why not take your marking into a coffee shop? People do that all the time.”
No, the distractions are too many: give me a car park where the only distraction will be the security guard who might walk by a few times, looking suspicious at first, then sympathetic. A car park is quiet, uncomplicated and boring: it is not trying to be anything else but a car park, unlike coffee shops trying to infiltrate book stores, florists and food troughs. With a car park comes focus: it is so unpleasant that marking’s a pleasure. And you remember where you marked – now isn’t that something?
Like: Grand West Casino (it comes with skating-rink attached – for the kiddies); N1 City (so depressing that the pen set the pages alight); a ten-pin bowling alley in Bellville, the Kenilworth Centre (laser-hunting inside, dodgy characters outside) and Tyger Valley. These were always night experiences; daylight might have made them seem better, but I doubt it.
As I sat there the thought of being hijacked never entered my head. In fact the only time I have ever been worried about airing my scripts has been on the train. As no mugger would ever have obliged and lightened my load, it was not this I feared, but that some interested commuter would look over my shoulder and remark: “Oh, I see you are marking Senior Certificate First Language English (Higher Grade) Paper Two – how interesting.” Yes, back in the old days one was “allowed” to take home the hallowed scripts, provided it was not too obvious. Marking on a train can, I suppose, be called obvious but more than once I klapped a few en route to the centre, the memo so embedded that it could be done without even looking. Planes, too, have been territory: once the turbulence is over and the passenger next door is either uninterested, uninteresting or absent, how about a script or two for entertainment?
Marking is very useful. As mentioned already, it can save one from malls and also gild the pill of chores. Years ago, when my children were very young, we belonged to a baby-sitting club which allowed us the luxury of phoning up members to book them for minding our kids on a particular night. It was a simple barter system: we were then in the red and when another couple needed someone to babysit theirs and our name was top of the list, we’d be given the call. For me this worked out very well: not only did it save money but also advanced the cause of marking, provided that the children were not tetchy or hyper. Once they had been put to bed (usually by the parents who thought that it was best, seeing it was a dad not a mom doing the beat), I could mooch around, skim a few of their books, enjoy some of the delicious dainties left as an offering, then settle into some serious marking. And it only got better: there’s nothing like getting ahead when there’s no choice but not to. Quite often the couple, enjoying the gorgeous freedom of being without the kids, would stay out far later than they had intended. When, well after one o’ clock, they put their heads sheepishly around the door, they were not met by an indignant stare but, “Hi, enjoy yourselves?” I had scored – extra points in the bag (if they came in after midnight, double points earned) – and had rolled over a whole batch. Had I tried to do this on a weekend night at home, not a third would have seen the little red pen.
What’s also memorable is where, not what I’ve marked. Our school sets an infamous project which requires holiday marking: each takes so long that starting during the term ends up in frustration as there is seldom time to settle down to it properly and feel any satisfaction in the process. What I remember about marking these (and, back in the bad old days before computers there were some dreadful, horribly-handwritten 10,000-worders) are a rondavel overlooking a river, a bungalow in the mountains above the West Coast, a house in The Wilderness and cottages in some Nature Reserves. Ambushed, occasionally, by school sports tours, I do not remember as fondly the room of a girls’ hostel in P.E. and a boys’ in Jo’burg , but the projects got done.
A piece of advice often heard before smartphones and laptops altered the horizon was, “Don’t take your work home with you.” An English teacher may find that impossible, but freedom is knowing that marking can be done anywhere.
Thanks to JR Korpa of Unsplash for the image
