Dawa Gets Panicky!

One more Wednesday, one more lesson with IX E in the last period. We have already discussed the meaning of ‘the underdog’; the reasons for Dawa’s fear of being eventually an underdog, a fallen, disgraced leader; the pathetic state of the former Leader of Warnings and Signals now reduced to an underdog and the difference between Dawa and the other dog leaders. Though the students were supposed to read Chapter-4 at home, we have spent the last two days going through the chapter, explaining, discussing things. Now it was time to see how much they have learnt from this chapter.

Yesterday, towards the end of the period, I informed them after I had summarized the chapter for them that today I would ask them to answer some questions. I reminded them to go through the chapter at home/hostel once more systematically to be able to answer the questions properly today. They were asked to answer 6 questions accordingly in 25 minutes. All the questions could be answered in one or two sentences at the most. I wrote the questions on the green board and went on to remind them that they would exchange their notebooks after 25 minutes and correct their friends’ answers.

While they got busy answering the questions, I went around monitoring their progress. Looking at how worn out they all were and how intensively they were trying their best to answer the questions,  a strange thought came to my head all on a sudden.  It is very easy for me to ask them to answer questions like that at the end of the day, but they must have gone through a lot during the day. They must have studied and learnt something about at least 6 more subjects in the previous six periods and to be asked to answer 6 more questions must have been quite taxing for them!

I told them at the end of the 25 minutes that one day they could ask me as many questions as they wanted from all the chapters we have covered so far. Then I asked them how many of them couldn't finish answering all the questions in the given time. I was not really surprised to find more than half of the class raise their hands. I told them that in the exams if they are going to answer Set-II questions from any section, they will be given 45 minutes for that. (English Paper-II will have 4 Sections and the students will have to answer either some MCQs and short questions under Set-I or 2 broad questions under Set-II in 45 minutes as the total time allotted for answering all the questions from all 4 Sections are precisely 3 hours.) Then finding the poor response of the students, I changed my mind and asked them not to exchange their notebooks and try to correct their answers by themselves instead. Abinash was eager to answer the first question. Though there was not more than 10 minutes left, I let him. The answer was correct but I told the class to try to answer questions in full sentences. Instead of doing it pointwise, the answer could be written like ( the questions along with the answers are attached at the end for your information) :

The three powerful dog leaders in Thimphu were -

        I.          The Leader of Territories,

       II.          The Leader of Warnings and Signals, and

     III.          The Leader of Howling.

Contd on the next page.