Yes, I have chicken danced in the name of education

The last week of the month is exam week, my favorite week of the month. It's smooth sailing for me. My students sweat it out while I read a book, and no lesson planning, which means my free time is actually free. (Today I read an entire book. Educating Esme. Thanks Meg! It was very inspiring.)

This month, though, I have 2 exams that involve speaking, which means I can't just sit there with my book. I have to actually listen to what they're saying. For whatever reason, they were the most concerned about the speaking part. One student asked me every day for a week what the speaking topic would be. I finally got annoyed and told him I wouldn't tell him anything if he asked again. I don't know what they were so worried about. They're only talking to me, who they've been talking to every day for three months now. I mean, I've stood up in front of the entire class (both of them) and done the chicken dance. How intimidating can I be?

That's what I don't like about exam week, is the whining. If you ever want to hear a group of adult Peruvians sound like children, tell them to put their pencils down and hand in their tests. But Teacherrrrrrr, 5 more minutes. Pleeeeeeaaaaaasssse! They're worse than I was when my mom would tell me to get out of the pool. And not only do I give the 5 minute warning my mom gave me, but I also give them a 30 and a 10 minute warning. They start whining as soon as I give those warnings, as if I have personally sped up the clock. They do the same thing with the listening CDs. I tell them ahead of time that I will only be playing the CD once, or twice depending on the situation, but as soon as it's over (and sometimes before that) they start begging me to play it again. What part of NO don't you understand? It's the same in Spanish!

And no matter what I do, I can't get them to spell my name right. I even write it on the board, but I still get a load of test papers with "Kelly" listed as the teacher. Today, I even saw a guy write it the correct way, look at it, decide it didn't look right, and change the "i" to a "y." Do you think I don't know how to spell my own name? The woman next to him didn't even bother. She just wrote "Kell."

But it was in my first class that I had the most unique misspelling ever. I've never seen this version of my name before, and I hope I will never see it again. One of my students, who is not the brightest crayon in the box, spelled it "Quelly". She got a 37%. (And before you can ask, that's the grade she earned, not one given out of spite.)