"How Do I Help Jesus?" or "What the Hell Does "Quimies" mean?"

What the hell does "Quimies" mean?

Google doesn't know. Bable Fish doesn't know. If they don't know, no one knows.

No one except Jesus, that is.

Yes, Jesus.

Jesus is a 17 year old Honors Biology student of mine.

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An experiment in academic Darwinism...

Last week, we had our first test over "Characteristics of Life - Unit 1". This test would be the big divider. It would tell me who was going to make it in Honors Biology this year, and who wasn't. You can always tell by the first test.

The multiple choice portion doesn't really tell that much.... but the essay portion, separates the "men from the boys".

When I grade honors students' work, it usually goes pretty fast. They have traditionally been a homogeneous group.... all good spellers, all good writers who can typically get their point across in a few well chosen words. That is until AVID and the culture that comes along with it.

AVID is a program in our school that is supposed to pull up the mediocre students who are sort of "on the bubble"... could be honors kids if they were just hog-tied and dragged a few hundred miles. Honors teachers, such as myself, are the privileged few who are assigned to do the dragging. Although no one really asked us first; they just told us to start pulling.

And pull we do.

There is an old saying, "You can't get blood from a turnip". Truer words have never been spoken. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear either, they say.

The culture that I spoke of is that culture which says that ANYONE can be an honors student, if they are sweet and come to school everyday. That is what seems to be the criteria these days.

Bullshit.

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Why is this taking so long??

So there I was, grading the first test. With each test the grading got slower and slower......

At first, the slow-down was because I couldn't understand the handwriting. What was taking about 2 minutes per test, started taking about 5 minutes, just to read the damn thing. Then, I started re-reading some answers because I couldn't believe how terrible the students' grammar was. I couldn't get over it. I kept reminding myself that THESE WERE HONORS STUDENTS.

I grabbed some of the worst examples and made copies. I wanted a record of the bad work and didn't want to hand it back to the students without some documentation for myself of how slick the slippery slope to mediocrity had become.

Then I came to Jesus' paper.

Poor Jesus.

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You = Tarzan. Me = Teacher. Your grade = suck

Jesus is a Mexican student who can barely speak English. Some people would say his English isn't that bad.... but they are just being nice. IT'S THAT BAD. Talking to Jesus is like talking to Tarzan. He speaks in baby talk.

"Oh, but he's a nice boy!", you may say....

Sure. But you can't understand him. His vocabulary is so limited that he sticks nouns and verbs in the wrong places.

But the problem is that Jesus always raises his hand first. He is more eager than anyone else to answer your questions. You can see the wheels turning in his head.... he THINKS he knows the answer.

But, he doesn't.

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Is there any wonder why I feel like Anna in "The King and I"?

"Okay class, raise your hand if you know what the word 'valance' means", (I was going over valence electrons and atom structure. )

I wanted someone to mention that there are curtains that cover the tops of windows with the same name. In ten years of teaching honors biology, there are always several in every class who have this word identity. You see, valance has the same root word as "vail", and means, "around the outside" which would help them understand a valance electron.

Not this year. Silence. Nothing.

Then, Jesus raised his hand. "It is like a weigh, a ... you know.... to see how heavy?"

I looked at him with a puzzled expression on my face. Then it hit me, "Oh! You mean a balance? No. That's not it."

The class was stumped.

I conceded the answer. And slumped back to my desk, whistling a happy tune.

(**if you haven't seen the musical with Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner you won't get that last sentence)

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Okay, where's the camera?

As I was sitting by my computer grading papers, I shook my head in dismay.

I had read Jesus' essay portion of the Unit 1 test several times and still couldn't make heads nor tails of it.

It was absolutely ridiculous how bad his answer was. I thought I was on Candid Camera. "Okay, where's the hidden camera?", I thought.

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Jesus' Test Paper

"Choose 1 question out of the following list. Answer in complete sentences. (10 points)

A. Give three (non-human) examples of homeostasis. Explain each of them as to HOW it shows homeostasis.

B. Using ALL the characteristics of life, explain why a cloud is not considered "alive". (minimum four sentences)

C. How would one determine whether something was living or non-living? "


"I think the cloud the conert with different reaciunt of Quimes, most of the people think the is not consedereG alive like see the have different Quimies the make a reacien that's why when the dark cloud is make some reaciunt to make rain the heat of evaporaciont that what I think in my insert."

**errors are representative of Jesus' exact work.

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"What the fuck?" That's all I could say for a few minutes. "What the fucking fuck???"

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"What the hell do I do with THIS!!????!?!?!" I shook Jesus' paper at Karl, my immediate supervisor. "I mean, What the HELL do I do with this?" the added emphasis made me feel better.

He offered laughter for assistance.

Some help he is.

My lamentations got louder. "HOW do I assign a number value to "suck"?? I mean, this IS the definition of "suck"! HOW DO I GRADE THIS????"

No answer from Karl. He snickered and repeated Jesus' words. "I don't know..... that what I think in my insert..." he said with an evil grin.

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?Donde esta su dicionario?

A few days passed and I was still at a complete loss on what to do about Jesus' test. I wrote on his paper, "You will have to re-do this. Take this answer home and re-write if. I don't understand what you are trying to say. It seems there is a language barrier."

As soon as I wrote it I realized two things:
1) he probably didn't understand what I said
2) he probably can't read cursive

Damn.

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Don't grade with a full bladder.....

Chevy walked in the room, my friend and co-worker.

"You have got to read this!" I said. At this point, I thought it was great comedy. It was the end of the day on Friday and everything tragic seemed funny.

I watched as he read it out loud.

"...like see the have different Quimies...." he trailed off -- laughing his ass off.

"What are Quimies????!!!", he said laughing hysterically. "I already have to go pee, I can't read this...", he was practically crying he was laughing so hard. I WAS crying and laughing. Then he said, "If I were you, I'd ask him what "Quimies" meant."

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So far, Jesus hasn't re-written the test answer. He looked dismayed when he read my comment. He was probably thinking, "Damn, por que' did I leave my dicionario en mi casa?"