Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Sunday the 27th
It is afternoon, and it is a strange day with a strange feel. It seems that changes are in the air. I did not go to town this morning, to the Sikh temple as I have done routinely for some time now unless I was out of town. The day is cloudy, cool, after a week of intense muggy heat without breeze that made it hard to go to sleep at night. There is a second, shorter rainy season that begins in March, usually, and we must be on the cusp of it.
It is unusually quiet. Few people are walking along the road on the other side of the football pitch – nobody is using or walking across the pitch. The dog, Hodie, is asleep on her foam pad. For a change I am ahead of my class in preparing lessons and so do not feel the pressure of guilt to write notes in preparation of classes tomorrow.
It seems too early, but there is a change in how my friends and I perceive ourselves. The realization that we are in our final year sits heavily upon us, the knowledge that we have now been here for almost 2/3 of our allotted 27 months. The curtains, or the fan, or the rug that we have always intended to buy for our homes but never did now seem superfluous since we will only be leaving them behind. Ryan and I were in agreement the other day that we are not exploring the region on our bicycles any longer. We have already canvassed the nearby regions, and we have to ride quite far to find ourselves in new territory. Any by now, our expectation is that the new territory would look much like the old territory anyway.
And for me, my difficulties with my classes feel like a watershed of some sort. I am teaching again and things are back on a fairly even keel now. The classes are not fighting me any longer and, really, have been quite attentive. That is a result of having given the students who really wanted out an opportunity to drop chemistry – this year, for the first time, chemistry is no longer a required course for Form IV students. None dropped out of Class E, but I lost about six students from Classes A and B, and Classes D and E were decimated by dropouts. One result is that we have combined C and D, so I now teach only 16 periods a week. This is a remarkably light teaching schedule. I will not object and I feel only mildly guilty.
But, in my last classes I checked all my student notebooks, and 15 students had not copied the important chart I gave them in the prior class. In my view, this is unforgiveable – even if they were not in class for legitimate reasons, they’d had two days to get the notes from somebody else. And if they get away with not taking notes in class, then they feel they can ignore anything I require them to do. I came THIS close to giving their names to the Academic Master for whipping. Then I decided that instead, I could have the Master make them do pushups in the dirt. We did that the next morning, although only 3 of the 15 students were at the Morning Parade. The rest must be day students, latecomers. I will take time from my next round of classes to direct the pushups, if they still have not brought their notes up to date. Grrrrrr!
Hopefully I will use my reduced schedule to make myself more available to my students. Yesterday I walked through the campus, and talked to a group of students for about an hour. We talked about national structures, and I developed my pet theory that Tanzanians need to take responsibility for themselves, and need to start small businesses. Most of the group drifted away, but several stayed and said that I had given them something to think about that was new to them. One was a Form V student, looking forward to the program on starting small businesses that should start in April.
A reduced schedule should also give me more time to devote to the small business course. My nine instructors were in southern Tanzania for a week’s training in how to present the small business course. From the reports I hear, it was an exciting program. They are on the way home now. But Scandanavia Bus has cancelled its service from Arusha-Moshe to Mwanza, so they had to scramble to find a alternative bus. Much as I wish I had been with them, it is probably good that they were on their own – if this program is to continue next year, they need to feel competent to handle it without me. But I think I can be instrumental into building local business support and financial assistance for it.
It is afternoon, and it is a strange day with a strange feel. It seems that changes are in the air. I did not go to town this morning, to the Sikh temple as I have done routinely for some time now unless I was out of town. The day is cloudy, cool, after a week of intense muggy heat without breeze that made it hard to go to sleep at night. There is a second, shorter rainy season that begins in March, usually, and we must be on the cusp of it.
It is unusually quiet. Few people are walking along the road on the other side of the football pitch – nobody is using or walking across the pitch. The dog, Hodie, is asleep on her foam pad. For a change I am ahead of my class in preparing lessons and so do not feel the pressure of guilt to write notes in preparation of classes tomorrow.
It seems too early, but there is a change in how my friends and I perceive ourselves. The realization that we are in our final year sits heavily upon us, the knowledge that we have now been here for almost 2/3 of our allotted 27 months. The curtains, or the fan, or the rug that we have always intended to buy for our homes but never did now seem superfluous since we will only be leaving them behind. Ryan and I were in agreement the other day that we are not exploring the region on our bicycles any longer. We have already canvassed the nearby regions, and we have to ride quite far to find ourselves in new territory. Any by now, our expectation is that the new territory would look much like the old territory anyway.
And for me, my difficulties with my classes feel like a watershed of some sort. I am teaching again and things are back on a fairly even keel now. The classes are not fighting me any longer and, really, have been quite attentive. That is a result of having given the students who really wanted out an opportunity to drop chemistry – this year, for the first time, chemistry is no longer a required course for Form IV students. None dropped out of Class E, but I lost about six students from Classes A and B, and Classes D and E were decimated by dropouts. One result is that we have combined C and D, so I now teach only 16 periods a week. This is a remarkably light teaching schedule. I will not object and I feel only mildly guilty.
But, in my last classes I checked all my student notebooks, and 15 students had not copied the important chart I gave them in the prior class. In my view, this is unforgiveable – even if they were not in class for legitimate reasons, they’d had two days to get the notes from somebody else. And if they get away with not taking notes in class, then they feel they can ignore anything I require them to do. I came THIS close to giving their names to the Academic Master for whipping. Then I decided that instead, I could have the Master make them do pushups in the dirt. We did that the next morning, although only 3 of the 15 students were at the Morning Parade. The rest must be day students, latecomers. I will take time from my next round of classes to direct the pushups, if they still have not brought their notes up to date. Grrrrrr!
Hopefully I will use my reduced schedule to make myself more available to my students. Yesterday I walked through the campus, and talked to a group of students for about an hour. We talked about national structures, and I developed my pet theory that Tanzanians need to take responsibility for themselves, and need to start small businesses. Most of the group drifted away, but several stayed and said that I had given them something to think about that was new to them. One was a Form V student, looking forward to the program on starting small businesses that should start in April.
A reduced schedule should also give me more time to devote to the small business course. My nine instructors were in southern Tanzania for a week’s training in how to present the small business course. From the reports I hear, it was an exciting program. They are on the way home now. But Scandanavia Bus has cancelled its service from Arusha-Moshe to Mwanza, so they had to scramble to find a alternative bus. Much as I wish I had been with them, it is probably good that they were on their own – if this program is to continue next year, they need to feel competent to handle it without me. But I think I can be instrumental into building local business support and financial assistance for it.
