The final laugh

Over the two decades when I marked the final examinations for Matriculation, major changes occurred.  In the early years, I was able to port home large bundles of unmarked scripts which I would even pull from my case on my train ride to the marking centre.  More than just look at them, I would extract a red pen and get a start on whatever target I had set for that day.  Fellow passengers showed little interest.

The move from examinations being set and marked provincially to papers written nationwide changed all that.  Foremost was the security:  upon arrival and departure from the centre where hundreds of markers marked thousands of scripts, one’s bags were searched by the security guards.  Were one to secrete a paper beneath a shirt, with the intention of substituting another in its place, a body search would have revealed it.  But they didn’t – which is why, after all our scripts had been marked and checked, I did smuggle out the memorandum for our paper.

A second change was the move from a classroom in a school to a lecture theatre on a campus.  In the cosy space of a classroom it was easy to share an answer or query the memorandum and have it discussed across the room.  In a raked lecture theatre, separated by levels and wide rows, silence prevailed.  When a consultation was needed, markers approached their personal moderator for a hushed conversation.  There was certainly no evidence of marking being a laughing matter.  But it had been in the past.

Maths Paper 2 is not funny.  Which is why, when guffaws, bellows and shrieks of mirth exploded from the classroom at the end of the corridor, Maths Paper 2 would mutter: “There goes English again.  What do those guys do in there?”

English Literature can be fun, but its answers can be funnier, especially when concocted by a candidate who clearly has not read the Shakespeare setwork and, in answering a question set on a passage, writes, “His tone was loud and strong.  I know this because I saw the movie.”  Night-before readings of study guides, plot synopses and sample answers produced some unimaginably wild and absurd responses.  King Lear reached new heights in the character of Gloucester: “His eyes were amputated”, followed by “If Gloucester can’t see, he must get a German dog to guide him.”  To have the exam room interrupted by such gems was a respite from the diet of rote answers one had to consume and made the next script on the pile a little more palatable.

With tighter security came tighter lips.  Given the size of the venue, to read out an answer for others to consider, discuss or argue was impractical.  To read out an answer that initiated roars of laughter could be frowned upon.  After all, the number on that script would be most humiliated to know that his or her response had been a source of so much fun.  Consider the feelings of that number: not only were we being cruel but also arrogant.  We were looking down and making fun of someone’s ignorance. Though this was never stated as such, the atmosphere in those marking venues was strained, the faces serious, the sound scratchy.

I have kept many of those sources of laughter, not just from Matriculation finals but also from the decades of marking compositions and essays.  They do not promote a self-image of my being cleverer than another; they do not have me tut-tutting over the ignorance of the youth.  No, they provide me with something no AI source could concoct, errors and bloopers of a serendipitous charm.  I hope the following brief adventure, gleaned from my teaching years, does the same for you.

An Adventure

Shorn noted that the capital, Addis Adduppa, was swarming with men in suits, cafes and computer shops.  Walking down a street he saw a sign: “Ears pierced while you wait”, and heard an Arab businessman sending a shofar to collect his wife and children. When they arrived there was something about the woman’s hazel eyes, husky voice and the fresh colon she wore that put him in a such a daze that he had to wash his face off with cold water before resuming his journey.

The kilometres seemed to go on for miles but he arrived, finally, where some people were living in a backwash.  There he entered a monstrosity and heard someone clearing his throat in a disgusting manor.  Looking out the window he saw minibus clouds in the sky but when he turned around a lady, wearing the latest style of negligence, was approaching.  She had clearly betrayed her vowels.  She did, however, drink her tea in a very eloquent manner and when the horse curves were served before the main coarse, he did not even batter an eyelid.

Suddenly there was a commotion: thieves leapt from their car, carrying their lute, and fired four rounds.  Shorn was biting his fingernails on the edge of his seat which made him feel so emasculated that he had no teeth.  Standing on the virtue of failure, he decided to take the bull by the horns and suck it up.

(to be continued in the next issue)

Thanks to Dan Cook of Unsplash for the image