Good morning Pupils, Students, Teachers and Parents all round the globe.

Welcome to my blog and to class. Today is Thursday 7th day of May, 2020 and I want to share an in-depth analysis on something that is happening lately in the educational sector which calls for serious attention.

I had in my previous post shared some insightful contents about teacher's dress code and how it affects the learning output of learners. I had also shared the need to reconsider attention span and its coloration to learning as well as a poem analysis to celebrate the African motherhood and womanhood. Please feel free to see them with a click on these links.

Today, I will be considering the faults of Teachers while computing the pupil's scores.

Background information

Few years ago while I have been teaching in different schools. I was privileged to learn few things that has added to my waelth of experience. One of such lesson I learnt from my bosses and supervisors is that our - Teacher's output speaks volume about the school's input. As such, my boss back then had me and another English Teacher as his personal secretary and editor. Hence we were saddled with responsibility of reading and vetting our Boss's outgoing mails. I can vividly remember that day when he He told us that he was quit particular about what goes out from the school to the parents because such communication(s) or outputs speaks volumes about the caliber of Teachers we have in our school.

Though at first I rebelled, it was later on that I understood why he had to pay us extra cash to do the vetting of his mails.

Reality in the school I Head

Unconsciously I took the pains, yet today I can boldly confess that the work which I rebelled against then has shaped me a lot because being the Head Teacher of a School, I read a lot of materials like Note of Lesson, Scheme of Work, Class Attendance Register, Exams Questions, Mark Scheme, Answer Scripts, Results or Report Cards etc., and make corrections and or comments where necessary.

It was thus in one of my tasks of vetting materials in my office that I discovered this costly mistake in the pupils result and the computing as done by one of the Teachers. This mistake is one that has resulted in change in the position of the pupils.

I discovered that the pupil A was made to take 2nd position because her score was not well computed. I called the teachers attention to it immediately and after apologizing said that she was working under pressure. I tend to wonder what kind of presure would make my teacher record a different number on the answer booklet and a total different figure on the Report card, thus pushing the Pupil B to taking 1st position by mistake.

Effect off such mistake

1. Imagine a parent noticing at home that there was a mistake in the result.
2. Imagine the father or mother bring the result to meet the teacher for explanation and verification only to know upon correction by the Teacher that his child or ward did not take first position as the Teacher had erroneously recorded.
3. Imagine what the parent would feel like seeing you alter the scores and giving excuse that it was a mistake.
4. Imagine the child's reaction when he or she learns from the dad that he is no more the first positioned in class as the scores and position was given out error.
5. Imagine what reputation the class Teacher and School would stand to loss by just that single act or mistake.
6. Trust the parents that can spread info, imagine how many other parents will get to know about this same mistake?

So what is the way forward?

Teachers can avoid some mistakes in their result or note if they do the following:

1. Write their note in time as at when due than wait until the "rush hour" when they would not be able to stay focused.
2. Teaches should understand the concept of stress and concentration level. Once they feel that their stressed and cannot stay focus with what they are writing, they should not try to force it, but rather take some rest/nap so that they could wake up refreshed.
3. The Teacher like in the School I came in from, should call some pupils to come and help vet the scores in the pupil's examination answer scripts so to ensure that the score recorded and that of the result tallies.
4. The Teacher can now give the Result to the Head Teacher for final vetting, signing and stamping.
5. Try to adopt Microsoft Excel to aid you with your "calculus" and ease the stress.
6. Thus, rather than be a old school Teacher who still punch the Calculator manually, thus wasting time, input all the scores and sum it up with just a click.

As usually I always advice that you watch the picture closely, there's always something there to learn.

Action Point

Make up your mind not to procrastinate when you have much to do.

Be extra careful when computing scores manually so avoid the temptation of mutilating the scores.

If you are not yet an ICT inclined Teacher, please use this lock-down to learn from youtube or any available resource centre.

Strive to always upgrade your skills and CV yearly, it gives you an edge above your equals.

Thank you for reading my post.
Please do not allow your mistake in computing scores steal the pupils joy

I am @voclab

I teach with passion. See you soon.