Sunday, July 10, 2005
I don’t like to feel sick, and I’ve been doing my best to act as though I’m not, but I am. Slight fever, but mainly my head is very stuffed up, my nose is running like a faucet, eyes itchy, I’m sneezing and feel weak. I’m taking an antihistamine for symptomatic relief, but it doesn’t seem to be helping. I’m still riding my bike to town, but there isn’t much joy in it right now.
Joe was visiting me last week from Bukoba, and he stayed a couple of extra days. He’d intended to just make a stopover on the way to Rwanda with other PCVs, but was instead was dealing with fever and diarrhea. He missed out on his trip, and finally just headed back to Bukoba on the boat. I don’t have his intestinal symptoms, fortunately, but I am more casual about who uses what dinnerware and glasses than I probably should be. Mistake. Hope this is over soon. Like tomorrow.
I’ve given up teaching in this ‘tween term period. Students simply weren’t coming to class. I was taking it personally, but had a talk with several other teachers I respect and they have given up too. All discipline has been lost. The students had been given freedom – weren’t even expected to show up at Morning Parade. So they are generally hanging out, many are leaving the school grounds without permission, saying there is no-one to seek permission from. They have a point. Very few are making even an attempt to study. This is a bad situation, and I would not be surprised if it is hard to set right even when the new term begins. I foresee many, many beatings ahead.
I was really depressed a couple of days ago after working with a few “fairly good” students in the laboratory. I wanted to burn a little sulfur for them to show how ugly sulfur oxides smell. As I was holding a small sample of smoking sulfur over the kerosene burner, I asked them what the burning sulfur was reacting with. They had no idea. So I asked them what the KEROSENE in the burner was reacting with to make a flame. They had no idea. FINALLY another kid walked in and said AIR. Right! So what is air made up of? They didn’t know. These are Form-IV students (equivalent to 11th graders) and they are hopeless. No wonder so many of my students fail their tests abysmally.
Several teachers are away right now for a three week training program to instill new teaching methods. Student-centered instruction. They are supposed to come back and share these new methods with the other teachers. Right. Good luck! I really have no idea what could be done to turn these schools into valid educational institutions.
I wonder how much instruction is really being understood and internalized, even in the entrepreneurship course that seems to be going so well.
Whoops. I just took my temperature and it is 100.2. Aspirin time.
Joe was visiting me last week from Bukoba, and he stayed a couple of extra days. He’d intended to just make a stopover on the way to Rwanda with other PCVs, but was instead was dealing with fever and diarrhea. He missed out on his trip, and finally just headed back to Bukoba on the boat. I don’t have his intestinal symptoms, fortunately, but I am more casual about who uses what dinnerware and glasses than I probably should be. Mistake. Hope this is over soon. Like tomorrow.
I’ve given up teaching in this ‘tween term period. Students simply weren’t coming to class. I was taking it personally, but had a talk with several other teachers I respect and they have given up too. All discipline has been lost. The students had been given freedom – weren’t even expected to show up at Morning Parade. So they are generally hanging out, many are leaving the school grounds without permission, saying there is no-one to seek permission from. They have a point. Very few are making even an attempt to study. This is a bad situation, and I would not be surprised if it is hard to set right even when the new term begins. I foresee many, many beatings ahead.
I was really depressed a couple of days ago after working with a few “fairly good” students in the laboratory. I wanted to burn a little sulfur for them to show how ugly sulfur oxides smell. As I was holding a small sample of smoking sulfur over the kerosene burner, I asked them what the burning sulfur was reacting with. They had no idea. So I asked them what the KEROSENE in the burner was reacting with to make a flame. They had no idea. FINALLY another kid walked in and said AIR. Right! So what is air made up of? They didn’t know. These are Form-IV students (equivalent to 11th graders) and they are hopeless. No wonder so many of my students fail their tests abysmally.
Several teachers are away right now for a three week training program to instill new teaching methods. Student-centered instruction. They are supposed to come back and share these new methods with the other teachers. Right. Good luck! I really have no idea what could be done to turn these schools into valid educational institutions.
I wonder how much instruction is really being understood and internalized, even in the entrepreneurship course that seems to be going so well.
Whoops. I just took my temperature and it is 100.2. Aspirin time.
