SEA how they run

THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY

BC PIRES

TWO WEDNESDAYS ago, our 11-year-olds sat the Secondary Entrance Assessment, hoping to pass for a “prestige school” which, in Trinidad, means one where more teachers will fight over the school curriculum than teenaged girl gangs will fight over boys in the schoolyard.

In sympathy with people who may have been consigned for life to washing cars rather than owning them, I began my Senility Entrance Assessment exam last week, with a Newsday maths practice test. Today, I attempt what we now call, not English but “Language Arts,” to signify that “dem oppressor did oppress we but now we go oppress they mother grammar, on’stan’?” I have edited the questions for space.

Language Arts

Section I

Task 1. Identify and correct the six spelling mistakes:
Our dry season is charakterised by warm days, cool nights and occassionally, light showers. Sometimes, conditiones lead to droughts and bushfires. Sitizens are advised to reduce water useage and stay hydrated. Extreme heat can cause helth problems.

Many SEA students score under 30 per cent (as 154 of one school’s entire 165 form one intake did) so the examiners help out by making the mistakes as glaring as a blonde security guard at Massy but these mistakes stand out like blonde life guards at Maracas. On Ash Wednesday.

Also, charakterised is arguably correctly spelt because we pronounce character (Standard English) as car-actor (“correk” in Language Arts). Also, the examiners contradict themselves in simultaneously advising reduced water usage and staying hydrated.

Again, since Venezuela collapsed, spelling conditions as conditiones is normal-normal all over Trini-dah y Toe-bag-oh. And, even by SEA standards, it would be too far a stretch to spell the name of our only local bank as First Sitizens.

Task 2. Correct the six punctuation and capitalisation errors:
there has been an excess of slaughtering of the northern white rhinoceros There are now only two left Najin and Fatu. Both live in kenya. “There’s plenty of room for animals and there s plenty of room for people, too, Tony Fitzjohn said.

The examiners realise their own ignorance is easier masked if they set their questions in exotic locations, but how much better would the children feel about themselves if this question was localised. (And the major preoccupation of teachers who can’t get children to score more than 30 per cent in exams is surely their students’ feelings.)

I’d rewrite the question as:
it have too mucha pelting skinny puppy with big stone, ent. It have only mussee two pothong left round by we and the botha them, one name Dog, next one name Horse, eating from garbage bin, like spranger. “It have plenty of room for animals in the Labasse and it has no room for Rasta in police van, that’s why they have to shoot them, the police commissioner said. There’s a more culturally appropriate question we can all be proud of, no matter how many 14-year-old boys get shot dead while playing football in their neighbourhood ground.

Task 3. Correct the six grammar errors:
Nizam paced the guard booth. He often thinked being a security guard were boring. The radio was softly playing while Antonio snored loudly. Nizam dared not sleep. Suddenly, he hear a scratching noise. He shook Antonio whom continued sleeping. Cautiously, he peered outside. A stray cat glared to him.

No Trinidadian ever thinked anything. They either t’ought it or did think it or did used to think it. And no Trinidadian has ever used the word whom, except when they mean “who” but want to sound important. (Outside the SEA, they would probably pronounce whom as wom.) Whom is a word which we could safely remove from even Language Arts because Trinis know the proper pronoun to refer to persons is which. But I did like the last line about the cat glaring to him.

In the spirit of Language Arts (ie, one of absolute rebellion against English) I think I could better (and politically) correct these grammatical errors by rewriting in our dialect grammar, using italics to show corrections:

Nizam DID PACING the guard booth. He USES TO THINK NORMAL NORMAL THAT being a security guard was TEARS. The radio DID softly playing while Antonio STEADY SNORING LOUD LOUD LOUD. Nizam FRIKEN TO CLOSE HE TWO EYE. Suddenly, he DID hear a noise, LIKE A SCRATCHING NUH. He SHAKE Antonio LIKE A CHAC-CHAC BUT ANTONIO STEADY PASS OUT DEY LIKE AFTER JOUVERT MORNING. Nizam ONLY PEEPING outside. A stray cat WATCHING HIM CUT-EYE.

That’s enough artless language.

BC Pires is not so much likely to pass the SEA as to be passed out in the rush. Happy Chocolate Eggs to everyone