With only an early morning’s reading of Stewart’s erudite email to strengthen and stimulate me I drove a very sleepy way to school to day.
With the examination frenzy now over and the marking frenzy now reaching its crescendo my day in school was a continuous flow of teaching, marking and duty. That sounds like a motto of one of the more gung-ho American military organizations!
My colleagues are more than helpful and have provided me with examination papers and marking schemes and I have struggled with Excel to try and put the results in some sort of electronic form. The typing is obviously no problem is it when I try adding the mathematical functions to the lists that the problems start. The simple stuff worked (up to a point) but the more complex calculations gave results that were simply fantastic. And indeed wrong.
One of the advantages of working in a school like mine is that there is expert advice on difficult programs available at a moment’s notice.
Once the mystical significance of the $ sign in the program had been explained to me the whole problem that had been facing me vanished. Quite why the $ sign is used in the way that it is in Excel was not explained but, in very much the same way that I learned and applied the formula for solving quadratic equations, I accepted it as one of those bits of magic that when you use it you get results that are pleasing.
All my results are now nicely tabulated and calculated and I have finally ended up with the result which all examinations and tests in Spain end up – a mark out of ten.
Such is my new found proficiency in Excel that I have even discovered (with a little help) how to make the program work out the finished result to only one decimal place. My previous best efforts merely resulted in final numbers which sometimes had a bewildering and frankly vulgar number of digits after the decimal point!
Tomorrow will see the arcane process whereby the numbers that I have produced will be added to other numbers in due proportion; averages will be taken and forced; other numbers will be introduced into the mix; judicious manipulation will be employed; calculators will begin to glow with overuse; computers will be hogged; tempers will be frayed and, eventually, the final Number Out of Ten will be ceremoniously entered on the computer as the summation of a term’s work.
This intricate mathematical chicanery is merely the fussy preliminary to an extraordinary general meeting which will be held on Monday after The Publication of the Mark Out of Ten.
This meeting is a gathering of the entire staff and representatives from all the classes. The form it takes is that the chosen pupils will take centre stage and then say what they like about their educational experience over the past term or year or whatever. They have, apparently, carte blanche to say what they like; nothing is off limits – up to and including commenting on individual teachers!
It should be quite an experience, though I will be partially restricted from the full effect by my faltering Spanish and my non-existent Catalan! I have no doubt that colleagues will be only too eager to translate the more juicy bits!
Interesting though this promises to be, I have also been assured by Those Who Know that it is a soul destroyingly boring experience. I, however, will maintain an eager anticipation so that the anti-climax will be all the more poignant when it happens.
Tomorrow promises to be a fraught day as I attempt to access the main computer listings and type in my paltry marks. At least I have my own computer and I will not be at the mercy of one of my colleagues slipping out for a visit to the toilet to free up one of the four computers that are set aside for the use of the secondary staff.
And there is teaching too!
Truly my cup runneth over.
With the examination frenzy now over and the marking frenzy now reaching its crescendo my day in school was a continuous flow of teaching, marking and duty. That sounds like a motto of one of the more gung-ho American military organizations!
My colleagues are more than helpful and have provided me with examination papers and marking schemes and I have struggled with Excel to try and put the results in some sort of electronic form. The typing is obviously no problem is it when I try adding the mathematical functions to the lists that the problems start. The simple stuff worked (up to a point) but the more complex calculations gave results that were simply fantastic. And indeed wrong.
One of the advantages of working in a school like mine is that there is expert advice on difficult programs available at a moment’s notice.
Once the mystical significance of the $ sign in the program had been explained to me the whole problem that had been facing me vanished. Quite why the $ sign is used in the way that it is in Excel was not explained but, in very much the same way that I learned and applied the formula for solving quadratic equations, I accepted it as one of those bits of magic that when you use it you get results that are pleasing.
All my results are now nicely tabulated and calculated and I have finally ended up with the result which all examinations and tests in Spain end up – a mark out of ten.
Such is my new found proficiency in Excel that I have even discovered (with a little help) how to make the program work out the finished result to only one decimal place. My previous best efforts merely resulted in final numbers which sometimes had a bewildering and frankly vulgar number of digits after the decimal point!
Tomorrow will see the arcane process whereby the numbers that I have produced will be added to other numbers in due proportion; averages will be taken and forced; other numbers will be introduced into the mix; judicious manipulation will be employed; calculators will begin to glow with overuse; computers will be hogged; tempers will be frayed and, eventually, the final Number Out of Ten will be ceremoniously entered on the computer as the summation of a term’s work.
This intricate mathematical chicanery is merely the fussy preliminary to an extraordinary general meeting which will be held on Monday after The Publication of the Mark Out of Ten.
This meeting is a gathering of the entire staff and representatives from all the classes. The form it takes is that the chosen pupils will take centre stage and then say what they like about their educational experience over the past term or year or whatever. They have, apparently, carte blanche to say what they like; nothing is off limits – up to and including commenting on individual teachers!
It should be quite an experience, though I will be partially restricted from the full effect by my faltering Spanish and my non-existent Catalan! I have no doubt that colleagues will be only too eager to translate the more juicy bits!
Interesting though this promises to be, I have also been assured by Those Who Know that it is a soul destroyingly boring experience. I, however, will maintain an eager anticipation so that the anti-climax will be all the more poignant when it happens.
Tomorrow promises to be a fraught day as I attempt to access the main computer listings and type in my paltry marks. At least I have my own computer and I will not be at the mercy of one of my colleagues slipping out for a visit to the toilet to free up one of the four computers that are set aside for the use of the secondary staff.
And there is teaching too!
Truly my cup runneth over.
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