In a previous life, I taught pre-university students how to determine the attitude and tone of a writer when making his/her arguments. I used to think that this required higher-order thinking skills.

It’s a sign of how demanding our educational system has become when 12-year-olds, while not required to decipher the underlying attitude of authors who pen argumentative essays, need to sharpen their inferential skills and deduce the attitude of the main characters in the narrative texts that they grapple with.

Needless to say, it was a disastrous outing for my sixth graders. I learnt that they equated actions with attitude. So, I gotta teach them that “the old man gave the boys some food” won’t warrant them any marks, whereas “the old man showed kindness toward the boys by giving them food” would earn them the mark. I also need to teach the class that “nice” is too generic an adjective and that while I was kind to give them the mark, other examiners would scowl and mark them wrongly.

It’s gonna be a long year ahead. 😅