Since my
hibernation during the Mid-Term Break, the only thing that has kept me going
must be relating to an achievement of some sort. I feel extremely proud of the fact that I
have, in my own way, contributed three blends to the language that has
redefined my life and they are:
1. Chable = chair + table,
2. Esstory = essay + story, and
3. Neprocrastination = nope +
procrastination.
But for the
last one, I am confident about the success and continuity of the other two. No,
reader, you are wrong in thinking that I am trying to lay a claim to fame. On
the contrary, I am just trying to get over the frustration of not being able to
do my utmost for standard-X. I am still a bit worried about the performance of
the students in the Mid-Year Exam. Though I wasn’t exactly expecting them to
pull out a rat of their hat, I did not expect only four students to score over
50% in Paper-I. Agreed that they more than made up for their poor performance
in the Language & Writing Paper by doing extremely well in the Literature
Paper,still then I decided to have a private talk with Ms.Palden Wangmo, who has been
dealing with Standard-X for long. Last Tuesday after the Assembly, she
reiterated the idea of exchanging our classes for the benefit of all. As Mr.Tenzin
Dorji, our Academic Head, was standing close by at that time, I broached the
subject to him. He told us that he would let us know soon.
Now time
does not stand still for the Board Examinees and the least I can do for them is
by not letting them waste their time. So I decided to get on with Mark Twain’s
immortal story : Is He Living or Is He Dead? In case, you reader, are unaware of this classic, let me give you the gist. Four very budding artists, fed up
with the hand to mouth existence, hatch a plot of doing something drastic for
their sustenance and survival. By casting lots, one of them is made to go
underground under the pretext of being dead and deceased! The grounds are made ready slowly by spreading rumours about this very talented artist being seriously sick,
cleverly manipulating the media and unbelievably arousing the people’s
interest in the deteriorating condition of the artist and his superlative
works! The neat outcome of this plot is, they all make it big beyond their
wildest imagination by hoodwinking people into buying the sketches of the so-
called dead artist at exorbitant prices!
The moral of
the story is simple. If people do not appreciate your talent, true worth when
you are alive, the only way of having monuments and statues erected in your
honour is by making them think that you are dead! In other words, people honour
talented people only after their death.
Now that is
all about the story. In the last 3 days since we started with the story, we
could get no further than the first three pages as the class has not
been very interactive and enthusiastic. I realized that I had to do something
to keep their interest in the story going. So I thought of playing a game today with them in the sixth period. The rules I talked about at the start of the class are :
·
There
will be two rounds. They have to take a quiz in the first round and write down
the answers to 10 questions correctly in 15 minutes. (Refer to the attachment )
·
Next
they will exchange their notebooks for corrections and award marks.
·
Students
who can answer all questions correctly, will qualify for round two and have to
answer one question in 15 minutes.
·
The
student whose answer contains all the points, will be the eventual winner.
Exactly as per my
calculation, the students answered the first 10 questions in less than 10
minutes. Then they exchanged their notebooks and marked them. Though most of
the students could do well and made no more than one mistake, unfortunately
only three of them could get all their answers correct. As a result, only Tek
Nath, Tshewan and Dorji Om qualified for the second round on the basis of
having answered all questions correctly in round one. In Round-2, the question
they had to answer was: Describe the man going out of the Hotel des Anglais
after the narrator.
As all three
of them could finish answering within 10 minutes, I asked Tek Nath to read out
his answer first. He replied so promptly and flawlessly that for a moment, I doubted
his integrity. But the second time he dispelled all my doubts by telling the
answer without even looking at his notebook.
His name was Theohile Magnan. He
was old, retired and a very rich silk manufacturer of Lyons. He liked to keep
himself to himself and did not talk to people much. He had a sad and dreamy
look on his face most of the times. He had been staying at Hotel Anglais for
long.
I asked
Tshewang and Dorji Om more for formality’s sake than anything else afterwards
as Tek Nath had even mentioned the name of the hotel in his answer, something
that I did not have on the model answer! I do not know if the students enjoyed
the game, but I learnt an important lesson at the end. I realized that a little
effort to get out of the cocoon on our part, may bring the best out of our
students!
