Marking season. Marking season always got me. It often makes me question my worth. I often spiral into a deep pit of self-loathing whenever I grade my students' papers. There are two reasons for it:
Firstly, I question my own competency as a mentor whenever my students obediently apply the structure / knowledge I taught in answering their papers but are unable to get a decent score.
In 2019, I was tasked with teaching novel analysis (KBSM SPM Paper 2 Question 33) To help my students with writing an analysis effectively, I read, compared, and distilled key points from various materials. Then, in the exam, my students confidently applied what I have taught in their writing, with the hope that they could score at least a B in that section. When I went for mark review meeting and showed my students' scripts to the senior teachers, they said what my students wrote was simply not enough. (I'll not go into the details here.) The highest grade my students could get was a C. I cried while marking 100+ scripts. When I returned the scripts to the students, I was met with many disappointed gazes and I apologized to all of them. Thankfully, the children were very forgiving and in the end, all of us encouraged each other to do better next time. (Side note: When Christ encouraged Christians to adopt a child-like faith, I personally think that on top of trusting God unconditionally, it also means to be as forgiving as the children are.)
Secondly, I feel extremely anguish whenever I notice that I have marked something wrongly. This is especially the case in situations like year-end assessment, where the students are only given a grade rather than having the luxury to check their papers and inform the teacher of any marking errors.
Let's say if I'm marking my fifth paper and I notice a certain ambiguity, I'll check the first four papers immediately to make sure I've not marked them wrongly. If I don't go through the papers right there and then, I'll keep thinking about it. The little devil in my mind will blow trumpet while twerking in a grass skirt, mocking my incompetency. You can imagine how messy things are when I'm marking more than 300 papers. Every time before a day of marking begins, usually teachers will set their goal and say, "my target is marking x number of papers today." For me, my goal is usually "my target is marking x number of papers today before I frantically go through every single paper again."
So, if marking season torments me such, why do I still keep at it?
Well, in reference to the first problem I faced, if I don't keep attending various kinds of mark review meetings and learn from the experts, how am I supposed to teach better? I can always ask for pointers from other senior teachers, but in my opinion, the most direct way to master something is always to 'infiltrate' the system and understand how it works from the insider perspective.
As for that little perfectionist devil in my mind, may God calm my nerves and give me the strength to resist its mocking. All in all, a job is well done when it is done by someone who is good at it, but a job is best done by someone who is willing.
(Extracted from my Facebook post, written on March 13.)
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