Testing, among other things, my patience

It's time for the last big exams of the semester before summer vacation. I'm sure you remember what it was like from the student side of things. But what never really crossed my mind was that on the teacher side, quite apart from the drudgery of grading however many dozens of tests, there was still a need to actually make the damn things. I mean, someone actually has to sit down and type in an essay with all the place names blanked out. Or compile a list of vocabulary for the class, and then choose then 10 most important (or arbitrary) terms. Or copy pictures of music scores, compound microscopes, dymaxion projections of the earth or that picture of the old Greek dudes hanging out after classes, and then make up questions about them. I realize now that it's not a particularly easy task. But it is done to try and accurately assess the degree to which the students have learned, retained, guessed at or copied from someone else the material covered in class. The point, as near as I can tell, is to check what they know.

Which is where my student from Ghana runs into some trouble.

Given that she is learning Japanese on the fly here, she is in the situation of being able to understand more than she can express. Usually it's easier to learn how to listen and read more quickly than how to speak and write well, especially in a foreign language. Which means she can't fully express what she knows. At least, not without a translated edition of the tests. Which is more or less where I come in. Her homeroom teacher (who also teaches English) and I have been translating the midterm tests for her.

Now, I can understand most of the teachers who have classes with this kid not making much extra effort to help her. Most of them speak no English and have no training in second-language education. For them, there's almost no precedent for having a student who can't understand their language. Or sure, they know tons about students who just don't understand their explanations, diagrams or need for classroom discipline. But most of them will erect a Someone Else's Problem field around her and get on with their days. And honestly, they don't have to give a damn about her in class. It really doesn't affect them if she fails or not, generally she is very well behaved so there's no discipline problems, and anyway she's all foreign and stuff.

But I'd have thought they'd give a crap about their coworker, her homeroom/English teacher. Since she's the one who has to translate the tests into English, and that she began asking them for copies of the exams around three weeks ago, when they put off finishing their tests until, say, 8:15 PM on the night before exam day, their behavior is really saying "whether you stay up all night translating or she can't understand the test doesn't matter to me one iota."

Of course, since I'm the one who helps the English teacher with the translations, you'd think I would be included in that blow-off. But my work hours really don't matter to them so much. And anyway, it's not that big a deal. First off, these tests only happen twice a semester, so naturally anyone who is inconvenienced can just take one for the team. And besides, I don't really need to be taken into account anyway. 'Cause I'm all foreign and stuff.