Wednesday, May 02, 2007

The invigilator gets in trouble.

Tonight my students had their exam, and I had to be there as part of the invigilating team. (Isn't that a great word?) A few weeks ago in lecture the prof proclaimed that he wouldn't be escorting anyone to the bathroom, and, well, I think he's right in that. So us TAs decided not to do it either. Seriously, it's ridiculous. And there's no way the students could have cheated or anything, even if they'd want to. (And if they do, why should we care, really?)

Anyways, so we didn't escort people. The chief presiding officer watching over the other half of the gymnasium where we had the exam quickly got wind of our rule-breaking ways. We must escort students: it's in the regulations. She got upset with me, and the prof, and the other TA, and then apparently reported our chief presiding officer---lovely historian AB---for not doing his job! OMG, woman. Wow. She was so wound up about it that she got angry when those of us from our side of the gym allowed students from her side to go off by themselves. In my case, she followed me follow the student toward the door, and told me that I was to let her do it, and then she followed the student to the bathroom. Intense, in an insane kind of way. And, the thing is, she is just another grad student like the rest of us. What her deal is, I do not know. I mean, heck, I'm all for following the rules to avoid chaos, but I think the lack of escorting made for a more civilized experience for everyone. And it also meant that us TAs were around when we needed to be to hand out extra paper and answer questions. (Let's not discuss how over on the other side of the room this woman and a TA spent most of the time chatting and not paying too much attention to students with their hands up.) Anyways, that was me being a rebel.

2 comments:

E :) said...

Damn. I hate those exam Nazis. That woman just needed to chill the heck out.

Anonymous said...

Time for a pithy quote about power corrupting. Fill in the middle bits yourself.



"Some have a way with words. Others, have not way."