One day the little enchantress will know the power of the craft she is so naturally potent in!

I take out the flash cards hoping we will go further in recognizing the opposites. Secretly also hoping it will help her memorize the shape and texture of all words we read and see. But she? She gives me this

And I say.. Dia look this is a..?

Dia: Giraffe mama

Me: yea and see they are two this one is (pointing at the taller one)

Dia: This is maamaa giraffe

Me: right.. this is Mama so she is tall. And the baby giraffe is?

Dia: Smallerrrrrrr

Me: yea and also he is short right

Dia: right he is short

Dia: and baby giraffe loves to run... and every time mama says slow down baby giraffe you are going too ahead of me you will get lost.

Me: Ahan.. (wondering where is this going... please dont go all Freud on me there are more stories coming)

Dia: But the baby giraffe runs faster and faster and mama comes behind slowly she is tired :(

Me: wow thats such a nice story isn't it.
and she says no this is not a nice story because the giraffe runs and doesn't listen to mommy. and I am thinking ... "is that morality" or is it just her way of telling me that she recognizes all those times I tell her to slow down that running far away she is testing her boundaries...
she doesnt give me much time to think and draws another pair

Dia: Look mamma a finished apple

 Me: yea and look at this one this one is?

Dia: whole

Me: yes and its also an apple that someone may have just started to eat right? so start and finish

Dia: yea start

Me: (wondering if i will get lucky with another story i ask) Dia so do we have a story of apple?

Dia: yeaaaa

Dia: One day Adiyah was hungry (am absolutely marveling at her start). And she went to the dressing table to look for noodles (why dressing table? why not kitchen? noodles because that what she was eating when we were doing this activity)

Dia (cont): but there were no noodles on the table instead (she used the word "balkay" i was so proud lol) there was an apple.

So dia ate the apple until it was half done and here is the rest of the apple (while pointing at the finished apple)

Me: Oh wow now this was a nice story wasnt it?

Dia: yea mamma you liked this story?

Me: yes i love you story

This time i pick another pair and say, "Look dia, whats up here"

Dia: Oooh look at this ship one is Nazdeek and another one is sooo far

Me: right and nazdeek in english is? 9and she gives me a quizzical look... its almost funny how she can still not tell which words are English and which ones are Urdu.. but am kinda glad for this blessing)

Me: its also near

Dia: Oh yea near and far, and mamma you know

(and I could see another story coming in....)

Dia: when the ship for near they shouted common Adiyah hurry up lets get on the ship but i could not reach to the ship on time

Me: and then?

Dia: then when I reached close to the river the ship was far far away and I said "wait i want to go also"

Me: oh o, then what happen

Dia: (she makes her voice dramatic) and then mamma i jumped in the water and swam swam swam until i reached the ship. Then i climbed up the ship but you know what

Me: what

Dia: the ship was made of wood and when I jumped on it I hurt my knee

Me: oh o, did it hurt

Dia: yes but I am ok now, I am so brave

Me: That you are my love!!!

This was the next pair

now you guess what the story went like.... a hint... it had a dream sequence lol....





  

7 things we should be thankful to Exams for...

One awesome thing that I am required to do as a full time teacher is to sit through hours of nerve wreaking boredom that exam invigilation brings with it! Anyway here I am after 2.5 (which feel more like 25) hrs of not doing anything but staring at a group of students taking their final exams with a fellow teacher. My only job there is to ensure that they mind their own exam paper and not others. Watching them write frantically looking up every now and then to glance at the wall clock and act as if the final hour of doom is approaching I keep telling myself, "whoever said time is relative was absolutely right."

Anyway so after what felt like eternity, I am done with my duty, I hand over the collected papers at the examination office and take the stairs down to my office. On my way I cant resist overhearing students that sat in my class discuss a particular accounting question and how one girl had gotten the answer wrong. As she does the usual, "array yaar" business around it one of the boys comments, "If you had sat at the back with us all you would have too gotten it right". I look up to him as hes caught mid sentence realizing a second too late who was passing by.

I am torn between what to do and I end up pretending I heard nothing as I see him making that awkward face we all Pakistanis make when caught red handed for a crime we consider to be too small to be a crime really.

For the rest of the day however I couldn't help but think about how I should thank exams or perhaps more appropriately thank how exams are often conducted for undoing so many things we teachers try to do throughout the term. With the power of marks/numbers/grades behind them this great tool called exam teaches our students so much more about learning and the approach to it than what I can.

So, as i marvel at the student's ability to elude me rather than marveling at what they have learned during the term I thought i might as well write this post for my fellow teachers as "x number of things they should thank the idea of examination and the way its usually conducted in our academic scene"

1. We should thank exams for teaching our students that dishonesty is great specially when marks are involved.
(be it a sign language created for MCQ confirmation, to one's ability to look at teacher in the eye and act so genuinely surprised when pointed out for cheating that the teacher starts having self doubt...)

2. We should thank exams for making students believe that the outcome is more important than the process
(an therefore, if they got the answer right the means with which they got it wont matter)

3. We should thank the exam for helping students develop an understanding that a momentary reproduction of knowledge is a greater goal than internalizing and evaluating what they have been exposed to

4. We should thank the exams for making our kids look at us as not people who genuinely care about their growth, development and learning but as tricksters who try their hardest to create confusion and chaos in their otherwise uncomplicated lives

5. We should thank exams to help emphasize the importance of one right answer, written in one particular way, hand written in pretty writing over a standard word count.

6. We should thank exams for ensuring that out students understand that time will always be against them and the champion is not the one who takes his time but instead one who masters that time by doing it the fastest

and kind of all of this together 

7. We should thank exams as being the unyielding part of the system of education that manages to somehow disseminate knowledge without really teaching at all... a system that sees mistake in inability to demonstrate knowing rather than seeing mistake in how knowledge was arrived at

Haram kamai halaal ghost all over again...