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As imperfect humans, we are prone to make mistakes at some point in our lives. Some mistakes can be fixed or corrected, some mistakes work in our favor while some mistakes when made can never be corrected.
Growing up, I have made mistakes more than I can count, some I was able to fix and some served as a lesson to avoid repetition.
There was a particular error I made that I could remember vividly even though it's been years now. As I am typing this presently, I still remember it like it was yesterday.
This happened when I was in secondary school, senior secondary school to be precise. I think by now some of us are aware of the large population in public schools. Therefore, some of our teachers then do enlist the help of we the senior students in marking examination scripts, recording and collating the Junior students' scores. We are not allowed to mark our scripts.
Back then, we see it as an honor to be chosen by a teacher to assist them. The teachers don't just choose any students, they choose students that are brilliant and have good and legible handwriting preferably among the school prefects. So if all criteria are met, the probability of you being picked by a teacher is very high.
The teacher that chose me is my Government Teacher, I will call him Mr. O. He teaches the senior students Government and teaches junior students social studies.
Mr. O is a bit friendly towards the students and he teaches very well but when it comes to discipline, he doesn't spare the rod, so he is also a Disciplinarian.
When helping the teachers to mark, we don't mark everything in the script, we only mark the objective part of the answers as the only answers required are given as options (i.e A - E). So we are given a paper containing the correct options for each question and all that is required from us is to mark appropriately.
The first time Mr. O enlisted my help, I only marked the objectives and he checked what I did and seems satisfied. The next term which is the second term, I proceeded to mark the objectives and also write out the names of all the students in his class and write out their corresponding scores when he was done marking everything. He also gave me a thumbs up as I did a good job.
The third term has more work as there will be marking, collation, and all that. The third-term results also determine whether a student is to be promoted to an higher class or to repeat the current class and that will be determined by their average score and percentage. If the performance of the student after the first, second, and third term results has been collated and his/her average score is greater than or equal to the pass mark, the student will be promoted but if otherwise, the student might be asked to repeat the class.
I did the marking as usual and wrote all their names, there were about 150 students. This time around I don't know whether Mr. O did not check what I did or he also didn't notice but I made a big mistake. Out of the 120 students, about 90 students passed, 25 students passed on Probation and 5 students failed. Out of the five students that failed, I made a mistake with one student, she didn't pass that much but her correct score would have given her the "Probational Pass" and without double checking Mr. O transferred the student's scores to their broadsheet.
When it's time to resume to the new class, unlike in private schools where students get their results before going on vacation, In Public Schools, the students get their results when they resume back to school and most times, students are always excited to move to a higher class but in the case of this student, she was among the students that were to repeat the class. I could remember seeing the tears streaming down her face. I don't know what but something made Mr. O double-check the scores of those five students that failed and noticed the error I made. The other four students' scores were correct but this girl's score was miscalculated by me. I can't believe I "failed" a student. He didn't hold me responsible but I felt responsible.
Mr. O was able to fix it later on and the girl was able to move to the next class on Probation but I couldn't shake that feeling. Her face haunted me, I could see her with tears in her eyes even in my dreams. I felt so bad as I ask myself what if Mr. O wasn't able to fix it, I would have been responsible for giving a student an extra year she shouldn't have. Though that didn't stop Mr. O, he still gave me another to mark and record. He said he wanted me to learn from my mistakes and be better. I never made such mistakes again but it took me a very long time to forget that girl's face. Of course, she was oblivious to the whole thing.
Now being an educator myself, that mistake taught me a lesson. On no occasion will I ever give a student something to mark for me, I do everything myself. Though, I work in a private school where the population is unlike that of the public school. Still, I can't bring myself to allow that "help". I do it all alone from Start to Finish because I wouldn't want any student feel the way I felt.
Thank you all for reading.
