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SEA How They Run

Saturday, 8 April, 2023 Filed in: TGIF

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.

SEA Trouble Now

Saturday, 1 April, 2023 Filed in: TGIF

ON WEDNESDAY, 18,000-plus 11-year-olds sat the Secondary Entrance Assessment, all hoping to pass for a “prestige school” which, in Trinidad, means one where there are more boys on the U-14 football team than there are on the mortuary slab.

In sympathy, then, with children whose adult lives may have been forever sealed in misery in three hours two days ago, I begin my Senility Entrance Assessment exam, with a Newsday practice test, maths today and, next Friday, “language arts”, the Trinidadian academic pidgin for what used to be called “English” back when we at least used to try to speak it formally. I’ve shortened the questions considerably; often, the language of the SEA is not particularly artful.

Back to Normal SEA-Saw

Saturday, 16 April, 2022 Filed in: TGIF

TWO THURSDAYS ago, Trinidad and Tobago’s 11-year-olds sat the Secondary Entrance Assessment, hoping to pass for a “prestige school” which, in Trinidad, means one where the students are more afraid of the teachers than vice versa.

In sympathy with people who may have fallen off the path to a stable life before they fell off their SEA-bike, I began my own Senility Entrance Assessment exam last week, with the maths questions from a Newsday practice test. Today, I wrestle with what we now call, not English, but “Language Arts,” to signify that “dem oppressor whey oppress we really cyar teach we nutten becaw we go oppress they mother grammar, on’stan’?” I have edited the questions severely for space.

Return to Normal SEA

Saturday, 9 April, 2022 Filed in: TGIF

LAST THURSDAY, thousands of 11-year-olds sat the Secondary Entrance Assessment hoping to pass for a “prestige school” which, in Trinidad, means one where there are more stabs at scholarships in CAPE than there are stabbings in the schoolyard.

In sympathy, with children whose remaining 63 years or so of expected life may have been settled firmly as “desperate” in three hours last week, I begin my own Senility Entrance Assessment exam today, with the maths questions from a Newsday practice test. Next Friday, I’ll do “language arts”, the modern Trinidadian pidgin for what we used to call “English”.

SEA BC on F

Saturday, 29 August, 2020 Filed in: TGIF

LAST THURSDAY, 18,000 11-year-olds sat the Secondary Entrance Assessment, all trying to get into one of the very few “prestige schools” in the country, in the hope of staying out of a fry-guy gig at Prestige Holdings Ltd, purveyors of KFC.

In sympathy, then, with children who wanted to grow up to become CEOs but may end up at CEPEP, I began, last Friday, my own Somehow Escape Alzheimers’ exam with the maths segment of a Newsday practice test. Today, I attempt what we used to call the “English” paper, until we realised there was considerably more self-esteem and inversely proportionally less work involved if we changed its name to “language arts”. As with the maths paper last week, I’ve shortened the questions considerably because SEA writing style is not particularly languaged-ly-artful.

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