Exam Results

I am sure all of you are anxiously awaiting the correct answers to the exams I posted a few days ago…just kidding. Perhaps a little more interesting for you are the results of my exams. The Basic Mathematics exam was bright and early on Monday morning, the first exam the students took, and they had 2 ½ hours to complete the exam. I spent all afternoon Monday and all day Tuesday marking the exams, being as generous as possible with the points considering how difficult the material was. Here is a break down of scores, by percent, for each form.

FORM 1

Final Exam Score

Grade	Percent	Number of students
A	81-100	5 (1 girl scored 100%)
B	61-80	8
C	41-60	8
D	21-40	12
F	0-20	29 (6 scored 0%)

Number of Students who passed with 50% or higher = 18 / 62

Final Grade for the Class

Grade	Percent	Number of Students
A	81-100	4
B	61-80	10
C	41-60	10
D	21-40	22
F	0-20	22

Number of students who passed with 50% or higher = 19 / 68

FORM 3

Final Exam Score

Grade	Percent	Number of Students
A	81-100	1 (96%)
B	61-80	4
C	41-60	11
D	21-40	17
F	0-20	44 (17 scored 0%)

Number of students who passed with 50% or higher = 12 / 77

Final Grade for the Class

Grade	Percent	Number of Students
A	81-100	1 (98% average)
B	61-80	7
C	41-60	8
D	21-40	17
F	0-20	44

Number of students who passed with 50% or higher = 10 / 77

Looking at these scores, it’s easy to see that my students are struggling with mathematics. It would be easy to be discouraged by the number of students who scored 0% on my final exam (23 to be exact), but then I must take a step back and think about the handful of students who performed so well. For a girl in Form 1 to score 100% on a very difficult test is outstanding, incredible, and so wonderful!! She will go places. To have a boy in Form 3 score nearly perfect on everything he turns in is equally as impressive, and I have no doubt that he will also go places. For the 30 students in both forms who passed mathematics (actually a very high number in my opinion!), they are all so successful already. And it is for them that I am here teaching.

For the rest of the students, who try so hard in class, who listen to my every word attentively even when they can’t understand me, and who will probably never leave the village, the score on their math exam really does not matter. The majority of my students will become farmers, cattle herders, mothers, fathers, or perhaps a small shop owner. Do they really need to know these esoteric math concepts? Like how to find the 10^th term of a geometric sequence or how to calculate compound interest? Doubtful. They need to know simple math to buy food at the market or to run a shop, yes, but beyond that this curriculum is completely irrelevant to their lives.

So what is the solution? I don’t have an answer for that…

It breaks my heart that these students sit through my class not understanding a word I’m saying day in and day out. Yet, they are getting an education, which is better than some can say. Come the new year, it will be interesting to see how this trend progresses, and all I can hope for is to continue pushing my brightest students to see how far they will go. While I am very excited to have a month vacation ahead of me, it should come as no surprise to say that I can’t wait to be back in the classroom!