Some did better than expectation, some did worse. Anyway, it is over and it has been a learning experience for everyone, including myself. There were days in the afternoon when almost every single one in the department stayed back to mark the math papers for our respective levels. It was a mad rush. Imagine clearing 450 scripts in 48 hours, of which includes moderation.

My classes didn't perform up to expectation. It is truly a disgrace that my gifted class turned out worse than most of the mainstream classes. They haven't been working hard enough, I must say. They had been 3rd for block test 2, and now they are 8th. I wanted to march to class and scream at them the first thing next Tuesday morning, but decided not to. These girls are probably more disappointed than I am, once they look at their scripts. They have high expectations of themselves too, though many chose to deny.

I believe when it comes to failure, we should all learn to accept it. By accepting it, it doesn't mean we leave things as it is and ignore it from then on. Rather, we should learn from our mistakes and evolve stronger than before. In almost all disciplines, it is the determination and the never-say-die attitude which make us go the long way.

I have one student who has been smsing me everyday since the end of her exams, anxious to know if she has gotten an A1 for math. To her, it is something unacceptable if she is unable to do so. Her mum called, and said the daughter has been crying every single day, worried about her result. She needs to learn how to accept failure. The bottomline is, every single one of us still love her as much as we did previously, even if the grade turns out to be something other than an A1.

To me, my classes not being ranked among the top is considered a failure on my part. I will learn to accept this and reflect on my current practices. Looking on the brighter side, even though I wasn't able to rescue every single student of mine, I have helped some regain their confidence in the subject. This is the spirit of the MOE starfish story "... at least I have made a difference to this".

The weekend is going to be spent setting the retest paper. I think they are going to have some other fanciful name for it this year, but to me, it is nothing but an easy passport to get them over to hci. Not that I want to set an easy paper to get them out of the school and pass on the misery to the teachers opposite. If I have a choice, I will send a paper with standard at least that of 'O' levels. The order received says otherwise. Just as I want to convince myself that this is an act of kindness on my part, I doubt if it is doing the students any good.