Mani’s Shorts – SEA Exam and more…
SEA Exam Today
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Allyuh today is SEA exam. Allyuh have allyuh No. 2 pencils, yuh sharpener, yuh eraser and yuh exam slip? Allyuh eat a good breakfast? Remember not to get too stressed out, eh. Answer the questions as quickly as you can. Make sure to blacken the entire circle on the answer sheet. Do your working on the side. If you don’t know the answer to a question, skip it and come back to it if you have time. Doh feel nervous, yuh know. Make sure to reach on time ok? So make sure to tell mummy or daddy to drop yuh off early. Nice chirren. Don’t worry, after today is play time till you get your results. No more “reaching late for SEA” dreams.
Is it strange that I never forgot my Common Entrance number? Even if I didn’t, my mother saved my slip and has it stashed away somewhere. During the exam it took my shoes off, kicked back and did my exam. I remember the examiners joking with me when it was all done that I took off my shoes and looked so relaxed. I guess that was the only way I knew how to do it. Anybody else mammy still have they Common Entrance slip or is that just me?
Rain & Clouds
Allyuh, I haven’t seen the sun now for almost a week. All we’ve had is rain, rain and more rain along with a helping of black clouds. And it’s only just March. The Bermuda/Bangladesh game could only go about 21 overs a side because of it. Yet it doesn’t look like it’s letting up any time soon. The good thing is that I haven’t heard of any reports of flooding yet.
Basdeo Panday
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“The only reason they failed was because they got too greedy. They tried to hang two Indians with the same rope.” Would someone who truly loves Trinidad talk like this? Or is this a self-absorbed, megalomaniac politician trying to seize power at any cost? Who cares if this divides an already polarized society? Who cares about the repercussions?
And I’m not making any judgment here about whether the prosecutions of Mr. Sharma and Mr. Panday were witch hunts. I’m concerned more with the language used by Mr. Panday and the immediate implication of race into this whole matter.
West Indies Vs. Australia
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Whether we play them first or last, we have to meet them. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t more than a little worried. Watching that game they played against South Africa made me wonder if we have it in us. Of course both Australia and the Windies are capable of playing at a World Class Level, but it has come to the point where Windies’ losses are called slumps and Australian losses are called flukes. It’s a little hard to win against a team that loses once in a blue moon.
Although they’ve moved out of the old Antigua Recreation ground and into the newly built Sir Viv Richards Stadium, will Lara get his old Antiguan luck back? Oh loss ah worried.
10 Responses to “Mani’s Shorts – SEA Exam and more…”
By Jonathan on Mar 27, 2007 | Reply
I lost my Common Entrance slip after the exam. I was issued a duplicate, but was convinced I wouldn’t be allowed to enter secondary school because I didn’t have the original.
Remembering your CE number is a bit like an ex-convict remembering his prison number. The CE exam was (and the SEA exam is) a tortuous experience that no child should have to go through. It’s child abuse.
By Jumbie on Mar 27, 2007 | Reply
Unfortunately, life is a competition and we must start preparing. Without competition, mediocrity wins, and progress stalls. Live with it.
By Chennette on Mar 27, 2007 | Reply
I am sure somewhere I have my CE slip. I keep these things. My mother on the other hand is most definitely NOT a pack-rat and keeper of papers so long after the fact.
True that life is a competition, but the winners of this competition aren’t always the best of anything later on in life. And the “losers” aren’t always mediocre. That’s the problem with divsioning at this age.
By eemanee on Mar 28, 2007 | Reply
u still remember your common entrance number???? are you 12 or are you just weird?
By Jonathan on Mar 28, 2007 | Reply
Jumbie:
Life may be a competition, but the playing field is far from level. Many of the children who sit the SEA exam are less than fully equipped to face it, through no fault of their own. Or they may not have the aptitude for it–children all learn differently and should be given the opportunity to realise their potential in different ways.
Also, as Chennette said, standardised testing at a too-early age creates harmful divisioning. An inequitable, elitist system is only perpetuated when one set of children are whisked off to so-called prestige schools while the majority are herded into institutions that are often little better than holding pens.
Third, the SEA exam simply helps to reinforce the system of learning by rote–a colonial era hangover–and instils into the mind a hankering for certification for the sake of it. We need more imaginative approaches to our education system; we need to create a whole new system that is more fair and just that recognises and rewards all the abilities and talents of all our children.
This is beginning to sound like a screed so I’ll end with one final point: surely a child of eleven should not be made to sit an exam–one exam, over in a few hours–that could well determine the course of his or her life, whether that child becomes a success or a failure? That, to me, is the ultimate reason why the SEA exam is tantamount to child abuse.
By Jumbie on Mar 29, 2007 | Reply
Children of 11 and 12 are more astute than we adults give them credit for. Look around you mate. They are carrying guns and involved in crime from even this age. They know right from wrong. The playing field does not have to be level. Why would we want it to be? The purpose of competition is to promote the extra effort to try harder. I didn’t see Ato running against the man on the street. He ran against people of his own calibre. The SEA and 11+ in England helps determine paths in life, to a cetain extent. There are always alternatives, hence the reason you can have other routes of accomplishment. But not everyone can do well, and some effort must be made to determine the capabilities and make the proper arrangements for the area the child WILL do well in. Just because the education system is not the best, does not mean it is ALL wrong.
By Jonathan on Mar 29, 2007 | Reply
Jumbie:
“Children of 11 and 12 are more astute than we adults give them credit for…. They are carrying guns and involved in crime from even this age.”
By that reasoning, we should give kids full adult responsibility. The right to make their own decisions and do as they wish. Would you want that? I don’t deny children’s intelligence. My point is not about them being able to do the SEA exam; it’s about finding better alternatives to a deeply flawed, outmoded system.
“The playing field does not have to be level. Why would we want it to be?”
Um, so that every child who has the ability to do well is given the chance to do well? I’m not arguing against a meritocracy; far from it. But such a system only works in a just and equitable society, which we do not live in, not by a longshot. Many children every year from deprived backgrounds fail the SEA exam (never mind this Orwellian sophistry from the government that no child fails the exam) not because they don’t have the ability, but because of their background. The SEA exam in effect penalises them for something that is not their fault, perhaps penalises them for life.
“There are always alternatives, hence the reason you can have other routes of accomplishment.”
But our system does not provide alternatives, at least not at that stage. The law requires all children within the school system to sit the SEA exam and enter a secondary school; where are the alternatives to that?
“But not everyone can do well, and some effort must be made to determine the capabilities and make the proper arrangements for the area the child WILL do well in.”
You contradict yourself here–first you say not everyone can do well, then you say they can, the right avenues just need to be found. I agree with that point: every child needs to find his or her talents and develop them. But the SEA exam, as a standardised test, does not do this. It forces all children who sit it into a certain type of academic mould. And as it is held to be the best, to many minds the only, way of doing things, all other ways are devalued.
Our education system is not just not perfect, it is very much imperfect. In other countries standardised testing is on the way out, or at least its limitations are being recognised and addressed. We continue to place all our trust in it, to our detriment.
By Afro Chic on Mar 29, 2007 | Reply
Mani…just pointing out one thing…SEA doh be multiple choice again.
Yuh does have tuh write now.
And is only Math, English and Composition.
By Ed on Mar 30, 2007 | Reply
Actually, there’s a big move in the US towards standardised testing, and I think it’s a great thing for crap schools to be forced to meet certain standards. How else are you going to measure whether our children is learning?
The problem isn’t so much with standardised testing as with how you use the results. The issue with the SEA is that we’re using it to decide 11 year olds’ futures, which is far too much to ask of a test.
By Mani on Apr 2, 2007 | Reply
LOL, eemanee, sorry I’m not weird. It’s just that that number was pounded into my head from early and I never was able to forget it.
Afro chic, well look how I behind times. Thanks for the tip.
Sorry Jumbie, but I have to disagree with you. I don’t have a problem with standardized testing per se, but the problem with Common Entrance and now SEA is that they are both brutal exams which I feel don’t accurately measure a child’s ability. Obviously or education system isn’t working with the state of the country being as it is.