Till I was in my mid-twenties I had a horrifying recurring nightmare. In the nightmare, I was fifteen years old, seated in my board examination hall, wearing my blue pinafore (a creation that contributed to some of the horror) all set to write a formal letter, precis a passage and pen a 500-word character sketch of The Mayor of Casterbridge for my English exam. Only to turn over the question paper to see that, in fact, it was Geography that day and I had no idea where bauxite was mined in India or which states welcomed the North-Westerly monsoons. I would wake up from the nightmare tearful and in a sweat.
At some point in my late twenties, I stopped having this nightmare. Possibly because I had two kids under three and wasn’t really sleeping, which is a prerequisite for dreaming and…nightmaring?And now, a decade later I am having a new nightmare. A waking one. In which I am the villain.
The eleven-year-old started middle school this year and has finally begun his exam-writing journey. Suddenly, I find myself mired in portions, timetables and revision worksheets. I am studying force, friction and the female reproductive parts of a flower. Bedtime stories have been replaced by dramatic retellings of the effects of force on objects. The young son objects to this change in routine, as does the dog who last evening was jolted out of his slumber at the foot of the children’s bed as I delivered a rousing speech on how to identify active and passive voices in a passage. I believe this will ensure it is seared in his mind forever. Or at least until the exam is over. If there is one person studying very hard in the house, I do believe it is me. My son has decided to take a rather philosophical view on exams, and stated that ‘marks are not the most important thing. Family is.’ I present to you gen nexts’ Sooraj Barjatya.
While the voice in my head is telling me that ‘You know that he’s right, exams aren’t everything’, another louder voice that studied in classrooms with 70+ kids and where marks were the only validation that mattered is telling voice 1 to zip it and go stand in a corner. While these two voices argue, my hands keep busy making flashcards for French present tense conjugation decorated with a smiling mouse in the corner. Because that makes it fun, no? Un smiley souris? I now wear a slightly crazed look on my face, and my son wears a hunted one on his. I look at him and all I can see is a ticker tape of all that is left to study. Mass! Matter! Moss! If you asked him what he sees when he looks at me, I’m sure he would say a walking nightmare.
I think it’s time we abolished exams and found a better way of gauging our children’s learning. Till then, I am publicly promising to be less crazy and not turn into one of ‘those parents’. If I already haven’t that is. But first, let me finish making these history flashcards with caricatures of the Mughals on them! I won’t lie, Aurangazeb looks a little bit like me.
menaka raman
@menakaraman
The writer’s philosophy is: if there’s no blood, don’t call me