FORBIDDEN FROM EVEN TAKING MEDICINE
By Stephen Wilson
Russian school teachers face stringent conditions while undertaking final year
school exams to 'test' their current knowledge of Russian.
It must have been a bad omen. While entering the gymnasium to substitute for
a Russian English teacher forced to take a final year school exam, I found my
way blocked by an ambulance. I was informed that it had been called to take
away a teacher who was suffering from high blood pressure. After half an hour,
when I was later politely ushered in by the security man who recognized me,
I entered the staff room then the classroom. I intended to discuss with them the
role of poetry and poems by two farmers, Robert Frost and Robert Burns. As
soon as I entered the classroom , the pupils stood up. And two enthusiastic pupils
even recited two poems by heart written by Burns : 'My Love is like a Red, Red
Rose', and 'Honest Poverty'. I was pleasantly shocked to learn that in some places
school pupils actually respect teachers !
However, respect for school teachers was hardly being shown to the luckless school
teachers having to take an exam 50 km away in the Russian town of Zelenograd.
Several Russian school teachers had to sit a final year exam , in Russian , originally
designed for school pupils. The publicized aim was to test the knowledge of school
teachers to establish whether they are qualified to teach. No, this doesn't imply
the ability to teach Russian but English and mathematics ! But most teachers believe
the real reason is to put teachers in their place rather than genuinely test their
knowledge. Other teachers suspect that it is just another pretext for officials to make
money. The teachers themselves have been asked to pay expenses of up to 3000
rubles to take the exam. Teachers also have to give up the classes they are teaching
which represents another cut in their income. As one teacher told me : "This is highly
inconvenient in terms of my precious time and money. I have better things to do than
this. " But it is also a highly stressful ordeal. An often overworked teacher in
poor physical and mental shape, is being asked to sit a school exam ! Can anyone
have thought up anything more humiliating ? This is despite the fact that the ex-
minister of Education condemned the use of those exams as" badly designed and
unprofessional". She stated that : "Those tests by Rosobrnadzor appear incorrect
from beginning to end".
A teacher told me that for many teachers, who have been teaching their
subject for minimum of 20 years , it was very nerve-racking. "One math teacher
was so stressed out her blood pressure rose and she felt ill. She asked a
supervisor in the exam room whether she could not go out to take some medicine
for this. But the supervisor refused because it was against the rules. The rules were
so strict that supervisors followed the teachers into the toilets! I felt so nervous that
I think I was making stupid mistakes I would not normally make. I was also worried
that I might by accident click the wrong part of the computer or the answers in the
wrong places." By the way, it is worth pointing out that a school teacher or pupil who
is brilliant in their knowledge of the subject can have all their answers declared invalid
by clicking the wrong button.
In fact, doing well or badly in those exams often fails to measure the
knowledge of a candidate. Those exams will never take into account that a student
might be frozen by fear or become more anxious about their ailing health than doing
well in an exam. To prevent a teacher from taking urgently required medication during
an exam defies any logic or common sense. What if the teacher happened to die on
the spot ? Does this ever cross the mind of any of those officials or supervisors? It is
great pity that officials don't show the same respect to some school
teachers that pupils offer them. You'd expect this to be the reverse. The world is in
deed, upside down !
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