Entry is Prohibited

The mid-term tests are Thursday and Friday. About two weeks before the test date a waist high chalkboard about a handsbreadth wide appeared at the front of the school office. "Forbidden to Enter the Office" was neatly written in kanji on the board.

Upon returning to the office I stopped and stared at the sign. A staff member desperately struggled to find a way to explain the sign to me until I read it out loud. They spent a bit of time in shocked discussion with everyone in earshot about how I could read the sign.

As the conversation subsided I carefully commented, "But my desk is over there…" A couple people saw the humor in this. The rest of them assured me it was ok for me to ignore the sign.

On a daily basis children enter the office in droves to copy information off of the several chalkboards we have for planning out their lives; or to collect items the teachers sent them to fetch; or for any number of other reasons. Their approach to the office is usually quite disorderly, making a quick exit impossible. The chalkboard barring their entrance has only complicated things further. First, it partially blocks the already narrow entryway; and second, all the kids that normally would be coming and going are bottled up in that same narrow space waiting for teachers to help them.

Usually the kids are supposed to yell out the name of the instructor they want as they approach the forbidden zone. If the teacher is busy, distracted, or ignoring them, then students must yell out repeatedly. Quiet is not an adjective used to describe the office.

My assumption until now was that the kids were all taking standardized tests. Talking with an English teacher I discovered that each teacher generates their own test.