Time of My Life

The Time I Judged a Lot of People

Now, I know the title sounds misleading, but I was not being mean today. I got to skip pretty much an entire day of school! Well, I was at school, but not doing much work. There were Heritage Fair boards to judge!

I thought the day would start with more Science Fair presentations, but lo and behold, Ms. Shaw came in and called out a list of names in our grade. There was some confusion surrounding me going though, because Hayes and I have the same name in real life. Ms. I had scribbled down some names and had forgotten to add a last initial. So, both of us decided to go.

Ms. Shaw took Jo, Hayden, Natalia, Melissa, Erin, Riley, Hayes and I into her room and handed out rubrics for Heritage Fairs. Two grade 7s, McKenzie and Jane, were also there. I may have missed some people, but that's all I can remember for now. Anyways, Ms. Shaw passed out the rubrics, and we were all surprised. You see, there were gifted tours happening today, and we were expecting to be guides for that. We all got really excited, especially Riley and I, since we did them last year. Ms. Shaw told us that since Ms. I, her student teacher and her couldn't judge all the boards, some intermediates were chosen to judge the junior boards. I was honoured - maybe, since I don't actually know that it was me Ms. I called. Oh well.

I partnered with Hayes to judge, since we were told to do it in pairs. Seeing the kids' reactions when we introduced ourselves was hilarious. One kid actually stood wide-eyed for like ten seconds.

All of us felt bad about giving bad marks to the kids, but we had no choice since a lot of important components were missing. For example, lots of boards were missing abstracts. HOW!? Historical thinking concepts and inquiry questions were also omitted in a lot of them. Also, it was hard not to judge solely off of visual appeal. It was still great to have some kids who were always annoying to me at my mercy. HAHAHA. However, I tried to make sure not to let personal bias get in the way of my judging. I tried.

By recess, Hayes and I had only judged two projects. There were so many more to be done. Ms. I was disappointed in our progress and told us to only interview the "good" boards. That was no problem with me. It was tedious having to figure out what class the kid was in, then go find them in that class (or possibly another class, since we do rotary) and escort them back to the gym. Also, Hayes and I kept glancing at each other and smirking randomly during interviews, which I'm sure scared the students we were judging. I mean, I would be nervous if my judges did that to me. Usually, it was just at the things the kids said. One kid was murdering the pronunciation of a lot of words. It hurt me physically. Not really, but you get the picture.

Either way, Ms. I sent two more people to help with the judging - Hailey and Paige. They found a board that was very pretty in my opinion. It had those plastic sparkly thingies on it and it was really shiny. It was about the CN tower, and the tower kind of stuck out on top of the board - it looked cool. Then, the two told me to read the introduction.

It hurt me even more than the pronunciation of the last student I interviewed. Ouch. Right in the brain (if I even have one). Worse than that, Hayes had gotten sweaty from recess, and kept wiping his sweat on me. Ew.

Just before lunch, I was on my way to get a group of students who had done a "good" project, when I was stopped by the secretary. She asked me to do office helping during lunch, but I REALLY didn't want to go. Hailey and I were supposed to go out to the Real McCoys (a fast food place) for lunch. However, that was not a legitimate reason, so I told her that I had "something." Thankfully, she told me to then find someone else who would fill in for Izabel, who was actually supposed to be doing it today. I asked Melissa and Hayden, who both said they didn't want to. I didn't blame them - who would want to be trapped up in an office answering those rare phone calls on such a beautiful day?