Philosophy 101 and the Left Hand Door

The trouble with being an exam supervisor is that kids make the same mistakes all the time, but it's because they're new to the room, the exam process, etc. You can't blame them, but it's still really annoying. For instance, there is a table that we use to do some paperwork. After days of telling people repetitively, "Please don't put anything on this table. Please don't put anything on this table..." I had the brilliant idea of us just forfeiting that table for one on the other side of the room. Now, students still put their bags and coats on that table too. Now, they don't know that we use it. How could they? But having to say it 47 times every exam period still gets old.

There is only one set of doors they're allowed to use. They are allowed to leave when they are finished with their exam. But we lock the right hand door because it's really loud. It slams shut, whereas the left hand door just softly swings shut. Most of the other classes have had some troubles. When the right side is locked, they look a little stunned, but then try pushing the left side and lo and behold - they get out. Phil101 was different. First, the first three people struggled and futzed so much that they actually did lock both doors. After I helped them, one said, "Jesus. Why would you lock us in?!" Sigh. Yes, we care not for fire hazards and enjoy watching you fumble. Then a girl walks over, fumbles and unlocked the right hand door, walked through, and let it audibly and disturbingly slam. I walked right behind her (I was on my way to help) and relocked it. The next girl walked through and unlocked the door again. This happened three seconds later, literally. Frustrated, I relocked the door. The next guy just plainly couldn't get out. I had to write a sign that said, "Push this door to exit. Cheers." Because, come on. These are 19 and 20 year olds at the youngest and they don't know how to exit a room. And no one had troubles like this besides Phil101.

Only one more kid had troubles, but when I went to help him, he tried to explain he couldn't read English very well. Yes, the exam was in English.