Deb­bie Ja­cob

The but­ter­flies left me just be­fore the CXC Eng­lish Lan­guage ex­am. Head­ing to­wards last June, I sud­den­ly felt a strange sense of peace when­ev­er I met my stu­dents in the Youth Train­ing Cen­tre (YTC) li­brary. I had grown to feel more con­fi­dent about the di­rec­tion I had tak­en-name­ly dis­card­ing the text­books for the most part and us­ing my own ma­te­r­i­al to teach for the ex­am.

I knew my stu­dents were in the best shape pos­si­ble con­sid­er­ing they had com­plet­ed a two-year syl­labus in eight months. I didn't want any­one to be­come dis­ap­point­ed with his re­sults so I said, "Re­mem­ber, we're try­ing some­thing here. Promise me, no mat­ter what hap­pens, we're not go­ing to give up." "We promise," they said.

Kheelon felt he need­ed more time to pre­pare for the ex­am be­cause he had on­ly been in Form One be­fore he came in­to YTC. He didn't feel he could make up four years in eight months. Still, he had want­ed to try the ex­am to see what it was like. I knew that he had moved up enough to get a "4." I was hop­ing for a "3."

I had been try­ing to think of fun things we could do af­ter June, but my stu­dents said they want­ed to go straight in­to CXC Eng­lish lit­er­a­ture af­ter their lan­guage ex­am. And so my stu­dents took their CXC Eng­lish lan­guage ex­am. On the day of the ex­am, I could on­ly think about how far they had all come. They had trans­formed from dis­tant, guard­ed, qui­et stu­dents in­to avid read­ers, ea­ger learn­ers and com­pelling writ­ers.

What's more im­por­tant, they had be­come car­ing, trust­ing, con­fi­dent, ar­tic­u­late young men. In the end, here is what hap­pened: Sher­wyn, the stu­dent I was most sure of pass­ing with fly­ing colours be­cause of his abil­i­ty to plug in­to a struc­ture and write cook­ie-cut­ter es­says, was un­able to sit the ex­am be­cause there was a mix-up some­where in reg­is­ter­ing him. He would have been a def­i­nite "1." I would bet my life on that. I nev­er for­gave my­self for not be­ing able to make sense of the mix-up, but Sher­wyn al­ways said, "Miss, I want you to stop tak­ing the blame for things you can't con­trol and things that aren't your fault."

Ash­ton was one of my best stu­dents. I knew from the let­ters he wrote to me and the chap­ters he wrote for his own book that he would pass the ex­am if he could over­come his fear of writ­ing an es­say. Ash­ton must have done quite well be­cause he re­ceived a "4" on the ex­am even though he was un­able to fin­ish two es­says. That "4" boost­ed his con­fi­dence and made Ash­ton work hard­er. He came back to class, knocked off es­says in a time­ly man­ner, and looked for­ward to tak­ing the ex­am last Jan­u­ary.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, he had to go to court on the day of the ex­am. I am sure Ash­ton would have re­ceived a "2." Nei­ther of these ex­pe­ri­ences proved daunt­ing for Ash­ton. Some mix-up caused Kheelon to be pulled be­tween Part 1 and Part 2 of the ex­am. He was un­able to con­cen­trate af­ter that. His "5" does not re­flect his true po­ten­tial.

Olton, my or­gan­ised, op­ti­mistic, na­tion­al rug­by play­er who wrote on the first day of class that he want­ed to be a tur­tle so that he could see gen­er­a­tions of young peo­ple grow up and not have to be dead by the time he was 20 or 30, got a "3" on his Eng­lish ex­am. He is the epit­o­me of dili­gence and per­se­ver­ance.

A young man I will call Sam came to me four months be­fore the ex­am. Mr Stew­art asked me to help him be­cause he had four good CXC pass­es but had not got through with his Eng­lish lan­guage ex­am in two tries. Sam had been trans­ferred to Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison be­cause he was over­age for YTC. He came to YTC for Eng­lish class­es and re­ceived a "2" on the Eng­lish lan­guage ex­am last June.

Marc, the cre­ative writer, had been a big wor­ry for me be­cause he avoid­ed writ­ing sum­maries. I thought he need­ed more prac­tice. Marc came through with a "2." I know that he is des­tined to be­come one of the best writ­ers to come out of the Caribbean. Kendell, my bright stu­dent who need­ed to move to learn, got a "2." I still re­mem­ber his smile when I told him the re­sults. "I'll take that," said Kendell.

He has grown-both aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly and per­son­al­ly-by leaps and bounds, and I have en­joyed wit­ness­ing his trans­for­ma­tion. Then there was Jah­mai, the young man who spent near­ly two years in lock­down. I had taught Jah­mai for two months by writ­ing notes on his as­sign­ments that stu­dents brought to class for him while he was in lock­down.

Jah­mai re­ceived a "1." There were rea­sons to cel­e­brate, but what my stu­dents said to me af­ter the ex­am meant more to me than any ex­am re­sults. It is im­pos­si­ble to con­vey how proud I am of all of them.

• Next week: What my stu­dents told me af­ter the ex­am, and why the pro­gramme worked be­yond our ex­pec­ta­tions