In teaching profession almost everything is exciting and enjoyable. More than your colleagues, it’s the students with whom you have an active interaction. The crowd is young, they have dreams and ideas that are sometimes highly ambitious and few times a tad bit funny that can be called as moonshot idea. The camaraderie they share is what the world needs urgently. Yet not everything is hunky-dory. The most difficult part of academia might be the ruthless work of evaluating exam copies! And yet here too is a silver line. And that’s the 2-3 hrs time when the exam is being conducted. Why that’s a silver line? Read along.
It is human to execute each examination immaculately. We work hard, notice the details, just so that when the time comes to prove our self, we do it like Picasso painted, like Beethoven composed music, like Shakespeare wrote plays. But then not all humans are the same. Some unfortunately want to paint like Picasso but forget the hours of dedication he put in to master the art. So that leads to the urge for finding short-cut. While the experience of a student giving exam is not exactly like composing an art for a lifetime and for the entire human race, the urge to finding short-cut despite is same. But here comes the role of the invigilators, who make this urge a unicorn, imaginary. So what remains alas, is a bunch of expressions, questions, and unexplainable actions by the students, all the while the exam is running.
When I was on the other side of the table, i.e, when I was a student myself, I never thought the invigilator can see each one of us regardless of the seating position. But now that I know, it is such an interesting site. Some students would be trying to remember a formula that is somewhere far away in their web of neurons making all kind of expressions with sometimes a pen in their mouth, other times it being used to scratch their head only to ignite that neuron. Some looking at the question paper and smiling. The smile can be of not knowing what’s there or knowing everything that’s there. You cannot differentiate it then though. Some making sudden eye contact with the invigilator and then wondering whether he or she is being noticed unnecessarily. While some who have little to write but ample of time to explore the little scratch at the back of their hand from long before, only to be noticed at length and peace today. Yet there are many who are busy writing their solutions and least bothered by anything around.
It all feels like music, where each note swells at a different note, and together they make a composition no less than that of Beethoven. And that’s why we love academia.
Aali Pant 