Testing, testing, testing

So a colleague of mine the other day commented on how delightfully easy my life is in Chimoio, what with chess club and only a couple of English classes on my teaching load at UCM.  I felt a bit guilty, to be honest, though I tried to remember how I have gotten myself burnt out back stateside, and how I've jumped around from site to site, so that establishing sustainable work has not been most characteristic of my service.  I'm not saying I deserve to have it easy.  I am saying that I have had and still do have my share of good, honest (volunteer) work.

Anyway.  Work, believe it or not, has picked up dramatically.  Lesson planning and teaching don't normally take extensive periods of time, but two weeks ago I had to write up three tests for my classes (in one class I'm using 2 curricula--the students' levels and skills are so disparate).  Then last week I graded the tests and recorded the grades.  Tedious stuff.  This week, I discovered only yesterday, the grade sheets or "pautas" are due.  Final exams are next week, so I was actually getting started on writing another set of tests, but then had to put that off in order to submit the pautas today.  I had assumed, wrongly, that the university administration would want the grades in one go after the final exam.  But it looks like grade submission is done twice towards the end of the semester.  Hey, I'm still learning the ropes here.

If you think this is a slew of tests, you would be right.  In addition to the "final exam," students get the opportunity to re-take it in what's called the "segunda chamada," the final, final exam.  I hope.  The entire testing process drags, in both senses of the word.

I do see the obsession or anxiety for testing:  it's not really a need, I don't think, but a compulsive desire for some number, for the illusion of some quantifier for learning.  As if receiving an 18 out of 20 signifies intelligence.  All students, whether here in Mozambique or in the States, by the time they reach university, are quite familiar with this "banking" system of learning.  They come to class to earn credit points, get a grade, not really to learn.  I've done projects and presentations in my classes, but unlearning this "banking" system takes more than alternative forms of assessment.  I think I myself didn't completely cut my grade obsession until graduate school, when I had to complete a Master's thesis that my thesis committee could approve.  

It's difficult to be on the other side of learning, that is, to be on the side of "teaching," and then hear your students complaining about their grades.  Last week, when I returned the tests for one of my classes, I confess I kind of lost it.  One student, having received his test, instantly started packing up his bags.  I ended up getting in his face, telling him to go if he's all set to go.  I then proceeded to give this big spiel on how students come for their test scores only and are not really in school to learn, how they have no right to complain about the test if they hardly even attend class and only come for the tests, how they ought to take their test results like responsible adults, face the consequences of their actions.  Sheesh.  I don't know why I struggle.  Lectures, studies have shown, are the least effective way to teach.  And I gave my spiel in Portuguese.