Friday, September 19, 2008

Tales from the funny side of the class record.

Tale#1
I once had a student who incurred so many absences that I had marked her attendance as DROPPED, she came back to class approximately 2weeks before the semi-final exam. Pleading to be accepted back, her excuse letter only covered the month of September as the month of the Ramadan.

I wanted to make sure that if I excused her absences, I had the approval of the dean so I had her wait outside the deans office. As I talked to the dean, she asked me: 'She is a muslim?' I said yes apparently judging from her excuse letter.

After 5-10 minutes talking with the Dean and getting the approval to give her some leeway regarding her absences, she thanked me profusely and saying she kept praying to the sacred heart of Jesus....

Jesus Christ! She was 'muslim'?
My mind went blank and saw the irony of things.

Tale#2
I caught a student cheating during the semi-final exam. He didn't sound remorseful of him being caught and even had the audacity to suggest that I give him a removal exam to which I replied 'I have never heard of a student who cheated but was given a removal exam. The door of this class room is open for you' I said those words with a smile.

The caught cat left his seat. A student who was late of the exam, oblivious to the preceding events of the class, sat on hot seat previous occupied by the cheating student. I replied that he should find another seat to occupy. 'Bad luck likes company'

Tale#3
One of the subjects I loved teaching is Psychology. You can do a lot of crazy things with a subject that play with the mind.

I tried to demonstrate how emotions manifest physically by pretending to scare some student outside of the classroom. Much to the delight of the class, there was actually a student who passed by and was shocked by my 'pretended scare'.

We had a great time laughing... I will never forget that class!