-
Banggg!
We all stared at the door, slowly moving back after the
bang. Like a recoiling cannon, the door wiggled till a point where we can call
it something between ajar and open, or neither for the sake of staying neutral in this tense time.
No one uttered a word, perhaps the question was which one of us would stand up,
walk to the door and then close it after rebooting the handle bar. Once the
door stopped moving, silence flooded
into the room like some kind of unreasonable remorse. At that moment, I heard
the seconds of the clock on the wall and that meant something to me, something
dangerous. If time starts making itself visible, that usually means I ran out
of distractions. Finally I had the courage to blame someone. In the time of
crisis, blaming a person before he or she blames you can put you one step ahead
of others.
- I don’t understand what made Chris so angry. I
gave your exam to my students and I graded it according to the rubric that you
provided. The average is 71. How could I possibly know the average in advance? This happened because of your exam Theo, it is all your fault. I said let’s make it
easier, let's make it different from a standard test.
Theo stood up from his chair and walked to the door. He seemed he did not hear the accusation I
just made or walking to the door without saying a word gave him some time to
digest the gravity of my bitter words. Isn’t time a double-edged sword,
especially during the hesitating moments? When you think it is real, it turns
into a joke. When you think it is an illusion, it takes revenge from you.
-
Why do you blame me for your problem, my friend?
I prepared the exam at the difficulty level of the exam our students will take
at the end of the year. I cannot make it easier or more difficult. And, I
cannot change the grading rubric either, it is standardized by the exam organizers,
solutions come with the questions.
-
So what should we do now? The average of my
class is 71.
-
It is supposed to be 85.
-
But, but, how can I move it?
He leaned on his desk, the cleanest and the tidiest in the
office. Whenever I look at it, it
reminded me how it shows his lack of confidence, his lack of passion about the
precision and beauty. His eyes were rolling on the lifeless objects in the
office while his body slowly sank into the desk like the drops of water sucked
by a sponge. At one point I fantasized he would say “There is no butt except
for the one you sit on, my friend!”. Perhaps I waited for this insult so that I
can have a reason to attack, the power of the oppressed soul… But he said
nothing to provoke me, except for his usual “my friend” petting.
-
Look my friend, keep it simple. Perhaps, what Chris says is true. He is the principal and we are just teachers, he must
know more than us about how to keep the balance of parents, school management
and students. We have to keep the average at 85 for all classes and for all
teachers. This will make the school proud of us and our school will not look
behind any other school in the city. Don’t forget that everybody in the entire
country does this. If you don’t do it, you will be punishing your students by
depriving them of the high scores which they probably deserve more than many others. Also think about
the difference in teaching styles or teaching skills. An average of 70 will
mean you are a bad teacher. That is what they will make out of it. Don’t expect
them to make statistical analysis based on the data sets. Powerful people keep things simple as long as those things help them keep the power.
-
I don’t care about what they think about my
teaching skills.
-
Yes, you do my friend!
-
No, I don’t, Theo.
-
Yes, you do! Everybody does.
-
Believe me, I really don’t! They are not in a
position to judge me, especially after this stupid 85 obsession. I am not gonna
let them do this to me.
-
Do what to you? Calm down! No one is doing
anything bad. It is just a matter of choosing a side between being stubborn and
being harmonious.
I took a deep breath as I usually encounter the use of the word
“harmonious” to crush the truth and to hide the unsatisfied souls. We sacrifice our inner harmony to create a harmonious
society which dies from inside because of all the fakeness and appropriations.
How is it possible to make life better by hiding the truth?
-
I don’t think it is right to inflate the grades
just to make someone happy. It has nothing to do with my teaching or your
teaching. It is about numbers and the people who don’t understand the numbers.
-
If not your teaching, then think of me and Ginny.
Ginny’s average is 85, mine is 85. And there is Lee too. Her average is 86.
Yours is 70. And we all teach the same course!
-
Mine is 71. Actually 71.3.
I perfectly knew that there is no significant difference between 70 and
71 but I still said 71 because I believe using certain numbers instead of
others gives one the right of feeling superior, however it might sound superfluous. 70 is for common people, for managers who use
numbers only to enhance their position, for workers whose everyday is a copy of
the any other days, for the receptionists at the 5-star hotels who smile at 5
Mao changes… 71 is for scientists who want to make sure 1 is a big number in
certain cases. 1 is the probability of absolute certainty for a statistician.
For a chemist, 1 increase in the atomic number can turn platinum to gold, 1
more increase turns gold into mercury.
-
Whatever! 70 or 71. There is not much difference.
The important part is the huge gap between 71 and 85 because this gap can mean
two things. Either you are not a good teacher to teach your students well or
Ginny, Lee and I are changing the grades to make the average artificially high.
The latter one will put us in the wrong side. You would be betraying us!
-
And I would be betraying the truth if I make my
grades artificially high.
-
Truth, what? Are you hearing yourself? You are
the one who keep bragging about how truth is a social construct whenever you
drink half a glass of beer. What happened? Lost your post-modern orbit? What are you now? Anarchist?
-
That is not the same thing. 85 means 85
everywhere in the universe.
-
Ohhh, now we will talk philosophy? 85 in China
means good and successful for the students, not against the social harmony, not
disturbing any parent, not creating a problem for the school management, not destroying
the fine balance in the educational institutions.
-
85 also means coffee in China.
This was Lee, the coffee addict of our office, the cute one,
the young one who seems not messing with elders’ businesses. Never serious
about anything, but always responsible, always vigilant. Her quietness never
meant she did not have ideas as most of the time, she knew more than the both
sides of a conversation. However, in the entire world we have seen her adamant
only about one topic: coffee! We even made a few bets about her coffee addiction
during the festive days. How many cups will she drink in a particular day? 5 or
6? If we cut her wrist, we will see red blood or brown blood? Can she
differentiate 10 Yuan coffee of the local shop from a 30 Yuan coffee from the
Starbucks? For this last one we tried a test and the result was not significant.
-
What about the fairness?
-
Why do you care about fairness if your boss doesn’t
want you to?
-
Because I am an educator, not a trained monkey
at a circus.
-
Ha ha, you are exaggerating my friend. Take it
easy, relax a bit. Do what you are told and leave it behind. Submit the grades
that they want to see and tomorrow begin your holiday.
-
Your pragmatism sometimes makes me sick!
-
And your fake, embellished, irrational cling to
the so called educational principles makes everyone sick here. Tomorrow,
holiday starts and everyone goes back home. You did not submit your grades yet.
-
You are so selfish Theo, so megalomaniac! You
want the entire world spins around you. As long as you save your face and your
pocket, you don’t care.
Perhaps, I shouldn’t say these last words but I could not
resist. They want to make me keep the average at 85 no matter how I do it and I
entered a hole in which I felt compelled to rebel.
-
Why don’t you use the spreadsheet I prepared. It
seems working fine. Once you enter all the grades, the program handles the rest
and gives you a perfect 85 average.
-
Yes, I checked the spreadsheet already. My
problem is not the 85. I am fine with it as long as the principle of fairness
has not been violated. When I move the average to 85, those who scored very low
will have a huge increase on their grades and those who scored very high will
have very little increase on their original grade, if not no increase at all.
This is why I call it unfair, especially to those who study hard to get higher
than 90 in the exam.
-
Ohh my friend, ohh my friend! You got everything
upside down! Take a deep breath once and think practical.
-
Can you stop calling me my friend? This is what!
Third or fourth, might be even fifth, since Chris banged the door. I have a
name, either call me Allan or…! Or say nothing! You always do this. When we
argue on an issue, you are not supposed to call me “my friend” in a way something
is wrong with me and you are gonna fix it by talking soft and nice. Instead of
playing rhetoric, set up creative arguments. I say “fairness”, you say “my
friend, my friend”. Don’t you know anything else? How is this a healthy
conversation between two educated people?
Nobody is used to my little tantrums, even myself. It is
strange that once you enter a road to be different from others –or to be
yourself-, you feel the pressure of the prying eyes to stay on that road no
matter how things change afterwards. Then you inevitably become one of them, although your
words will deny it as long as you remain within the borders of the road. To stay
on the road no more will mean looking for the truth because you and the road
are unified in a way your mind has been invaded by the principles of the road.
Then all is reduced into keeping the integrity of the road, however this might
challenge the truth itself. There is something more surprising than this
self-imposed exile. It is the confidence you borrow from the road. It boosts
your inner voice and makes you a monster, something you did not know it existed
in you.
-
Ok, ok, alright. Sorry about that, if I have
offended you. We work in the same office and we can sort things out without
sacrificing our friendship, right?. Let’s get back to our original topic. What
fairness are you talking about? How can you be fairer than a school which is
operated by a socialist government? Listen to me. You live in this country as a
guest and you are obliged to do what you are told as the guests usually do. You
don’t go to a house to criticize the host’s choice of carpet or furniture. You
just enjoy the food, the conversation, the atmosphere and then leave. If you
don’t behave, believe me the land lord will find a way to get rid of you. It
will be a matter of time, not a matter of effort!
-
Are you threatening me?
-
No, I am just telling you that you don’t obey the orders of the host, you will be threatened by the host and it won’t be so
wrong.
-
But we are educators, professionals, we know
what we are doing!
-
So what? Don’t you think Ms Xiang is an educator?
Don’t you think she knows what she is doing?
-
I am not going to make my average 85. Let’s see
what they can do about it.
-
Be smart, be practical, nothing good will come
from your silly stubbornness. By the way, what is wrong with increasing the
grades of those who scored low. Aren’t we supposed to help those who are
unfortunate in life.
-
Ha ha ha, they are not unfortunate, they are
lazy.
-
They are unfortunately lazy. The others are
fortunately hardworking. We are not the same but at the same time to keep the
society in peace we need to keep the gaps as close as possible. If we let the
gap widens freely then the social contracts that keep us together will break
off and we will be scattered like the beads of the shuzhu[1]
I didn’t know what a shuzhu was but I didn’t want to ask
either. It was most probably something he learnt from his Chinese wife or from
her family. If he uses the social contract card against my argument, this means
he has no logical ground to defend his position and he is using the big picture
of social balance as a shield.
-
So you insist I must make my average 85, no
matter how!
-
At least 85 actually. You can make it 86 or 87.
Just don’t go above 90.
-
But, I mean… What I mean is…
-
There is no but my friend, no butt except for
what you sit on! Make your average 85 so we will not have the same problem
again. You see, he is angry to you but cannot say it directly so he
storms into the office and shouts at everyone.
-
There is no justifiable way of making my average
85. Any method of moving the average to another number will cause unfairness to
some students, especially to the good ones.
He looked at me without moving
his lips but I somehow heard what he was saying in his head, things I say to
myself all the time: You are one of those people who exist only when they are
hurt, right? Only pain can awaken you, only after someone pours salt on your
wound you start realizing that you are real. Someone should hurt you so you
will begin feeling your self as a human being. That is selfish my friend, very
very selfish. Stop torturing your delicate soul because breaking the mirror will not help
you to get over the guilt of your ugly face which actually represents something
deeper, something more solid.
-
Think of it like progressive tax system, Allan.
The more you earn, the higher proportion of your income is taken from you as
tax. It is almost the same thing. The more you score, the less subsidy you will
be receiving from the teacher. Government is helping the poor and you are
helping the slow learners.
-
Stop using politically correct words for lazy
students.
-
So do you mean poor people are poor because they
are lazy?
-
No, your analogy is useless. That is not what I
mean! And I never said poor are poor because they…
The door opened at that moment and I stopped talking. It was
Chris again, this time he seemed calm. The signs of anger from the previous
explosion could still be seen but they were more like apologetic lines on the
sides of both eyes. Or this was how I wanted to interpret.
-
Can we talk Allan? Outside please!
I said nothing, gave a quick stare to Theo as if I wanted
him to understand that I am going to win soon. I was going outside to defeat
the cheaters, the ones who change the truth for their own sake. I, the true
defender of knowledge, was going to fight for my hard-working students and their high
exam scores.
We walked and talked for more than half an hour in the
playground. The summer breeze and the red leaves of the trees somehow made the
conversation seem more real to me. It was not a joke, summer was in the air,
sky was almost blue and I have a ticket for home, departing two days later. I found it quite hard to focus on the arguments while walking through the green dances of the trees and flashing sun beams coming through the crowd of the branches, spreading over our heads like palm leaf roofs of a beach restaurant. Knowing that winter was over was one thing but feeling the summer in my lungs was another. I looked at resurrection of life before my eyes, the cycle which did not care about my struggle for integrity, nor the 85 obsessions of the school. Life, with its immense power, as happening outside our petty problems. It was spinning around, leaving me with a sweet taste of vertigo, with the loves that have never been lived. Chris was talking and I was pretending to listen. At one moment, I realized that our walk-and-talk will not have an end if I do not make changes in my attitude.
I made the same arguments to Chris over and over and he
responded me with the same arguments that I have been hearing from Theo. We
were not progressing at all. At the end, I asked him if he let me to do
whatever I want as long as I keep my average at 85. He first looked suspicious
but then could not figure out what kind of game I might have planned so he said
“yes”. We shook hands like two
businessmen agreed on a rent contract. Before separating he said, “please
e-mail me your grades before 2 pm today”. I nodded quietly and went back to the
office.
-
So? What did you agree on?
Theo asked with great enthusiasm. He had the expectation of
change, the expectation of me getting bent by 180 degrees in the hands of the
principal.
-
I agreed to keep my average at 85.
-
Finally you find the right path, my friend. You
see, it is not that difficult. All you have to do is to accept the fact that
truth is a social norm made available by the society.
-
Stop speaking non-sense. I just agreed on
keeping my average at 85. Nothing else. And he agreed on accepting the grades
that I am going to send as long as the average is 85.
-
So? You will use the spreadsheet I developed,
then? Won’t you?
-
No way, I will give 85 to each one of my
students. The average will remain at 85 and standard deviation will be zero.
Isn’t it perfectly harmonious? Ha ha ha… No poor, no rich, everyone is equal.
-
But it will be unfair to all of your students.
-
Good one Theo, good one! You change your side
now. But it is too late...
Ali Rıza Arıcan
January 9th 2016, Changzhou
Ali Rıza Arıcan
January 9th 2016, Changzhou
