Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Teddy takes his very first examination......

Today marked yet another milestone in my little one’s life. Teddy, my angel, gave his very first examination of his life today. He wrote his English paper today. He had two prose lessons, 3 pages of spell-well, 3 pages of structures related to his prose, he also had grammar consisting of the use of ‘is, am, are’, naming words i.e.; nouns, and the use of ‘a and an’. He also had about 8 pages of a series called the ‘companion’ book. And then, there was the good, ol’ dictation. 20 words that too, no less.

Undoubtedly, today was indeed a very significant day for him. He definitely didn’t understand the fuss about examinations, but today marked a beginning of a lifetime of such tests. Which equals to pressure to outdo your own self each time, and the stress thereof. Ask my elder gem about this and you will surely get an earful!

But to Teddy, today was just like any other day. He woke up at his usual time, had his leisurely glass of milk and got yelled at as always, went about his daily morning rituals and was generally, not hassled. He, in fact, went and did some marketing all by himself too, today. I sent him to get me some green chilies and he, very confidently pocketed the Rs.2 coin I gave him and readily went and brought the stuff. Then, having done with all the mundane tasks, we sat down to a round of revisions. And for all his abilities, Aks just could not fathom why he was being made to go through all the books today at a single go.
At some point he said to me, “bas ma. Ab main bore ho gaya.” And there was no point in me pushing him as I had lost his attention to a pawn from his chess-board lying in a corner. And obviously, how do you explain to a 5 ½ year old the seriousness of examinations? It was so mesmerizing to see him in his carefree world sitting by the window watching the rains having no thoughts about what he was setting about to. I wished I could let him be in that cocoon of carefree bliss forever. But, that is so obviously not possible.

I readied him for his school and sent him off with a ‘best of luck’ and the usual peck on his cheek. Of-course, also not before I had given him a set of instructions about how to go about in his test. This, I m sure, he followed of very little but heard me out nonetheless.
All through the day, I kept thinking about my little one. My heart and mind was only with him. When the clock struck one, I was like, ok, now he must have entered his class. Now the paper would have been given to him. Will he be able to read, will he know where he is supposed to write his answers, will he be able to handle the questions…. So many thoughts kept racing through my mind. At around 3.30pm I knew it was over or at least supposed to be. Now the wait for him to reach home was driving me up the wall. And when he returned home in the evening, I asked him about his exams n pat came the reply,’ but ma, it was just another worksheet.” That’s it! Plain and simple. And then, he got busy with the chocolate his friend had given him.

I guess Teddy’s first exam was more of a milestone in my life than his own………….

1 comment:

Sunny "who else" said...

Jiza, Looks like you were more stressed about the exams than Teddy was and same was the case when Yash had his first exams, though for him he started giving exams and was carrying the bag full of heavy books from early on .. aks had it a little easy with no bags and books until now.. he had to face the daunting task of preparing and then writing the exams sooner or later.

And from the sound of it looks like Teddy wasnt worked up which is a very good sign, though as you mentioned i am not sure how much he knows abt the exams yet :)

but i loved the part about pocketing the Rs 2, reminds me of the days when ma used to bribe me with chocklates to get bread and milk :D ... lagta hia Aks mera hi carbon copy hone wala hai , hopefully with a better understanding of English Grammar :D and atleast 7 inches taller ..Amen to that thought