With new rules from the exam board, college gave 'training' to the teachers. A man who worked in exams proceeded to read sentence by sentence from a 100 page booklet. Across from me, I could see that one of my colleagues was actually losing brain cells with every minute that passed. I felt like rolling around on the floor and gurgling incomprehensibly. If any of us taught like this, our students would fall asleep and we'd be fired. After half an hour of the man droning on, I suddenly woke from my stupor as he announced that this year there would be no toilet break, but five students would be allowed to go. I raised my hand and asked:
'How will the five be chosen?'
The man from exams didn't have an answer, so I suggested one:
'Maybe as we invigilate, we can spot the five who fidget the most and let them go to the toilet.'
Exam Man gave a nervous smile before starting to read more from the booklet. I had another idea so interrupted him:
'Or we could have damp sensors on all the seats and the five which light up first shows who needs the toilet the most.'
Exam Man looked around the room for help, but the other teachers were giggling like naughty students. I raised my hand again and said:
'Or it could be like a raffle and we do a lucky dip from the student exam candidate numbers...'
Exam Man looked to his booklet for inspiration and carried on reading. I fell back into a stupor and my colleagues went back to their brain cell loss. It was never concluded which five students would be allowed to go to the toilet. But the next day, I was assigned toilet duty for the exams.