“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.”
Unlike in Europe of my own university years, we do not have oral exams in Canadian universities. Unless you are taking modern language all exams are written. The system is as impersonal as possible, thus (theoretically) fully just. Numerical results seem to be objective. Thus marking university students’ work is, in principle, based on justice not mercy.
Objective numbers
These days meeting out of such final justice is made considerably easier by application of Excell sheets into which we type in marks as the term progresses and tests follow tests – until the final exam. The final mark automatically pops out at the end of each Excell row that begins with the name of the student.
In some courses the final mark is based on only three components: a midterm exam (30%), an essay (30%) and a final exam (40%). Language teaching requires more testing, so in my Latin class the final mark (worth 100%) is calculated according to an Excell formula that consists of the following items: 10% attendance plus 10% all weekly quizzes (1% each quiz) plus 20% test (no 1) plus 20% test( no 2) plus 20% homework (no 3) plus 20% final exam (no 4).
Each student is different
One cannot help noticing that some students breeze through the course while others struggle. Some come from good schools which prepared them for university learning, while others attended high schools in remote locations, attuned rather to preparing the youth for an immediate career of a lumberjack rather than university. Then there are other, unforeseen factors: how should I asses the Latin attendance of a student from India, whose family chose the nice, cool fall season to wed her to her cousin in a remote village thousands kilometers away from Edmonton? Her homeworks and tests were perfect, but she will miss at least two weeks.
How should I deal with large blank spaces on the written (of course) midterm exam (worth 30%) of a student prone to panic attacks? She knows all intricate genealogies of Greek mythical beings when we talk about them in my office but she blanks out during exams. Or what to do with a Latin student who missed all tests, did not write any homeworks, whose face I hardly remember – but who wrote perfect final exam – perfect to the last letter. There is no doubt that Latin is cumulative, so he knows everything I had tested in various ways throughout the semester. His friend tells me that the student in question looks after his ill grandmother and has missed many other classes, not only mine.
And the Final Mark is…
It is dilemmas like those described above that make me love today’s Gospel. It is so good to know that God has no Excell sheet for me or anyone. Can you imagine that? Daily morning prayer at 1% of the final mark and monthly charitable donations at 20% etc.. etc..? Then, at the moment of death, the Final Mark would show… Who of us would survive Justice without Mercy?
Thankfully, “His ways are not our ways” and with His intimate knowledge of our hearts and His boundless mercy, 0 plus 0 plus many other zeros may amount to 100%. It is a very comforting thought for most of us, people of the sinful age, us who follow the way of imperfection and tremble at the thought of final reckoning.
… but the Exam passed thanks to My Mercy
Postscriptum: What is also moving in today’s Gospel is that those who were hired last got paid first. They already were humiliated enough. If no one hired them earlier to work in the field, they must have been quite weak – looking individuals. Too old and too young, maybe even some of them handicapped or ill. In human terms they were rejects. In God’s terms they were his beloved children. He knew they would not have lasted more than one hour carrying heavy baskets with grapes or pruning the vines, so he hired them late. He respected their dignity by hiring them to work, did not treat them as baggers. There is dignity in earning your bread. Then He spared them humiliation of waiting at the end of the line and the uncertainty of sheer survival which was part of their life.
This Gospel allows us to look right into the heart of God – and rejoice.
There is no doubt – our God is Love itself.
Maria Kozakiewicz