I left the house at 8 AM. I was about 10 minutes down the road when my pocket started ringing (that's right, I took the phone today for the first time in a long time). Mid-stride, I took the phone out of my pocket and looked at the number.
"That's strange - local number but not in our address book." I answered and it was Laurenzo. Where was I? I needed to come to school immediately to proctor an exam. But I switched exams with another teacher, I told him. He knew, but there had been some confusion apparently.
In my T-shirt and sandals, I walked the five minutes to school. Do not pass home, do not collect your wits.
(See, proctoring exams when you're the only white guy and you keep a very tight ship compared with the other teachers in terms of cracking down on cheating, requires you to collect yourself beforehand.)
So I arrived at school and was graciously handed the tests for the turma I had proctored on Monday. I left my hat in the office.
Arriving in the classroom at 8:20 AM, I was greeted with screams and yells in many languages, telling me to leave. I didn't open my mouth. I sat down at the desk in front and just stared at them with as blank an expression on my face as I could muster at such a moment. I've actually learned how to enjoy moments like this, but I knew showing any emotion would make things worse, if that were possible.
Four minutes later, Agostinho, kind of my associate-boss at school, stormed in and started to try and berate the class. He started yelling over them, and they finally quieted down enough for him to be heard. He called on the chefe of the turma to speak about why the class was behaving so poorly. The chefe said that it was unfair that I should proctor their class twice in the same testing period. Agostinho saw through to the truth very quickly: they just wanted to get away with cheating. He got very angry. He told me to wait in the office and told the class that they might all receive zeroes.
In the office, I calmly walked in to find Laurenzo talking with another teacher. Laurenzo worriedly asked me why I was back with all of the tests.
I told him why.
A minute later, we were on the warpath back to the room, blank paper in hand. I commented to Laurenzo "You know, I'm used to this now." He changed the subject quickly.
Laurenzo has this presence that's not quite apparent when you walk into the office until he directs his attention to you. It's as if he wants you to know that you have his full attention even though you can tell he's doing other work in his head. The point is, you know immediately that you can tell him the complete truth because he wants to hear it and you appreciate quick action because you know he's busy.
When he walks into a classroom, this same presence transforms into calculating control - and the students recognize his power immediately.
So when we walked into the room, with Agostinho this time, there was silence before Laurenzo could open his mouth. He grabbed the blank pieces of paper and explained that every student who didn't want to take the test would have to justify their actions on the piece of paper.
Clearly, and very well planned, there were no justifications. Laurenzo then made the logical conclusion that all must want to take the test - and if they would like to do so, it must be with me proctoring.
At 8:40, we finally began. We cut 20 minutes off the one-hour time limit and students not in uniform were made to go and get them. On his way out, Laurenzo said that I would continue to proctor this class for the rest of the week.
I thought he was bluffing, but he called tonight to make sure I was available tomorrow morning. The students already hate me, now they're going to want to have my head.
Should be...interesting.
Peace
John
