matching tracksuits

Matura — that’s something that happened that I haven’t mentioned. This year we failed nine. NINE!!

Then last week, Monday through Wednesday, we had the practice matura. It’s been hell grading it, but I’ve survived so far. I still have about seventeen to finish, and then I have to go back with 2b and 2c and grade the short writing, but that’s relatively quick and painless. But I have basically stopped writing in the margins — it just takes too much damn time.

I prepared a sample matura answer for them:

Dear Bob,

I hope you are doing well. I apologize for not writing, but I’ve been very busy at school and I haven’t had any free time. All I do is study, study, study.

“What am I studying?” you ask. English. You see, in Poland we have to take exams to graduate from high school, and one of them has to be in a foreign language. I chose English because I hate German. Who can speak a language with words three kilometers long? Anyway, one of the reasons I’m writing you (you see — it’s not just because I’m nice) is to ask you to send me some materials in English to help me study. Anything will suffice: magazines, newspapers, old books.

It’s important that I do well on my exam because I want to study English after high school. I’m thinking about being a translator. If I do well on my exams, I’ll have a better chance of getting into a good university. Of course, if I were rich, I could just come live with you in England for a year and then I’d be fluent.

I recently started thinking about what I’m going to do for vacation. I know that nothing can compete with that amazing vacation we had last year: two weeks in Fiji. What a dream! I guess once in a lifetime is enough. Anyway, do you have any plans? Perhaps we should do something? Maybe somewhere in Europe?

I’d better be going now. I hope to hear from you soon.

Regards,
XYZ

P.S. I heard Mark got a new job as a photographer. His dream job — I’m sure he’s still smiling. Send him my regards and tell him I’ll be looking for his photos in the Times!

Unfortunately, it’s too long. Oh well.

I’ve determined, though, that these kids just don’t know how to write, and that that’s my fault. I have to give more writing assignments, even though I don’t want to. And I have to get them to a point where they can begin checking their own work.

Few things seem to cause as much angst in a Polish teenager's life like the matura: a series of compulsory written and oral exit exams. Required of all students are two exams from Polish: a written and a spoken test. Students must pass the written before they are allowed to take the oral exam.

The written matura consists of four essay questions read aloud at precisely 9:00 a.m. on the same day in high schools throughout Poland.

This year the questions included the interpretation of a Wisława Szymborska poem (though not the one I included on the 25 November 2002 page), and a question, "Od Adam i Ewy . . ." (From Adam and Eve), about the loss of one's home and one's place in society as illustrated through literature. Another question began, "If you want to know a person, look at his shadow . . ."

The second day brings the chosen exams, with most people picking history, with math coming a close second. (Ironically enough, most of the students who chose math were girls — probably something like 80%.) This year there were about six people taking the matura in geography and one girl chose biology. No one chose English, and for good reason: it's a difficult exam, concentrating mainly on the irregularities and exceptions of English grammar.

Once the students' pain is over, it's time for the teachers to get their dose: grading all those exams according to strict criteria.

Then comes the spoken exams — when my pain begins.

Poetry and songs in Polish, German, and English.

Peter Kreeft was talking at KC about the logical impossibility of religious pluralism, that all religions are true. “Either Mohammed was a prophet of God or he wasn’t,” he reasoned. I find it increasingly difficult to believe that he said that. As a Catholic, he believes, for example, that even though the host looks like bread, tastes like bread, feels like bread, and would be shown under scientific tests still to be bread, that it’s actually the body and blood of Jesus. That Jesus can be completely two different things.

It’s a question of faith, and I read an article on a Catholic web site that took this even one step further. The author argued that only Jesus’ disciples — those who believed — could have seen him after his resurrection. In other words, if Jesus had appeared before Pilate, Pilate wouldn’t have seen him because he didn’t believe. That sounds suspiciously like willful self-deception.

Recall that Pieper writes that the chief obstacle to belief is the question, “Why should man be dependent upon information which he himself could never find and which, even if found, is not susceptible to rational examination?” The exposure to religion is a cultural experience, and it’s not something various individuals have independently worked out as they tried to figure out what this weird Unknown is that they’ve been experiencing. In other words, the seed is sown by cultural exposure to the idea of a crucified and risen god.

I wonder why that Franciscan bloke never wrote back. Perhaps he didn’t receive the email? Perhaps he thinks there’s no point? Perhaps he realizes that there’s no hope for me?