School Inspection

This week all the teachers were in a tizzy because the annual inspection was to take place on Thursday. Suddenly the staff room was filled with stacks of little orange-covered notebooks for correction. The normal intensity of the room was magnified, emotions flared, snapping ensued, and it generally became an even less healthy working environment. I was relatively cool, as I’m only a guest here, but when the day came even I shuddered as the stern AC Officer walked through the ranks of uniformed children and onto the stage for morning assembly.

She began ripping into the school during her morning address. The prayer was off-key. The music madam must correct this. I began to realize why people were getting so nervous. This was a PUBLIC evaluation of each and every member of the school. At the end of the day the AC Officer and the inspection team of different KV principals would hold a meeting with all of the teachers and staff and personally report their findings.

We had been informed that on the inspection day we should use a teaching aid (what a façade!), so I armed myself with my true/false cards and went to my classes as usual. And sure enough, at the beginning of my second period she settled herself down in the back of my class. Luckily, I’m rather accustomed to being observed, and class progressed normally and even better because the students were terrified and thus little angels.

Half-way through the class she stood up and addressed my students. "You love your English Madam, yes? You will cry when she leaves? You must learn as much as you can from her before she leaves." Well, that wasn’t so bad. I had expected her to start critiquing me there, because this is what the principal had done during his inspection at the beginning of my teaching term. (He decided to observe my class the day after I had come back from having dengue fever—oh, so kind of him. . . He scolded me for not walking around the room to be sure everyone was involved. Little did he know that I was supporting myself on the front table so that I wouldn’t fall over!)

Every time a teacher entered the staff room there was a flurry of excitement as everyone would ask, "Over? Over?" which is the word they use for "finished." They all demanded to know what the AC Officer had said. No privacy here!

At the end of the day we all gathered in the hall and awaited the Judgement. The inspection team filed in 15 minutes late and sat at the front. The principals reported their observations first, and they were quite kind and didn’t mention teachers’ names. Criticisms were made, however, and everyone was a little on edge when the AC Officer finally stood up to speak.
After critiquing the school grounds, she began by speaking about, oh joy, me. I braced myself for the assault, but it was almost worse than I had expected; I sat there red faced as she complimented me through the roof. Her barrage of flattery ended with applause, to my mortification.

Then her tone changed and she progressed to more scathing remarks about an upper level English teacher. I don’t know how that woman wasn’t reduced to tears, her rebukes were so personal. After berating a few other teachers, she whipped out the test scores for this year and started interrogating individual teachers about why the scores were so low. I sat cringing in my seat.

Teachers in the US complain about not being treated as professionals, but in comparison to India, I don’t know if any US teacher can say that. The inspection was particularly unfair because it’s not clear to the teachers what they are being judged on. Is there a rubric, criteria, or checklist? No. A couple teachers were so reduced to children, that they began arguing back with the AC Officer. . . making things even worse. This is what happens when the practice of public shaming is extended to teachers.

After the meeting, I hoped to slip out quietly as I was seriously mortified at being the only teacher praised. But immediately after we left the hall, my fellow teachers started smiling and shaking my hand, one of the first being that English teacher who was ripped apart. I meekly smiled back, and they told me I must bring them sweets tomorrow.

This is a lovely custom in India that I would wouldn't mind bringing back home. When someone experiences great joy—an honor, a Birthday, a marriage of a loved one—they bring sweets for their colleagues to share their joy. Isn’t that nice? (Although my teeth are probably going rotten with the daily sweets I get from the Birthday children.)

I happily took part in this tradition by bringing back some special Kerela sweets after my south India trip, but this time I wasn’t so excited about bringing sweets. Wouldn’t it be kind of rubbing my honor in my colleagues’ faces? But my mentor insisted it was appropriate so I brought them, but it was ridiculously awkward for me.

I think I’m glad that I got to experience the inspection process; it was certainly Indian in many ways. But I am just as glad that it is over.