Saturday, January 22, 2005
| I spent the first session with each of my classes outlining how I would present the syllabus material this year. And in my last class, a student raised his hand: "But sir, if you don't follow the sequence of the syllabus, how will we prepare for the Mock Examination?". "Hmmmm. I'll look into it." I replied.
The Mock Examination, it turns out, is given in about the middle of the year in preparation for the National Exam (NECTA) at the end of the year. But the results are important enough so that the scores are sent to some National Education Board where they are tallied and ranked. So they do matter. Then why is it a MOCK Exam? And yes, my students WOULD be left up the proverbial creek by my plans. There is in addition, by the way, a separate Pre-NECTA Exam that comes later and is ranked regionally. But we are still expected to give our "normal" Mid-Term exams and the First Term Final. I have no idea how all these various test scores are computed into the final grades - I had thought it all simply rested on the NECTA this year, anyway. So I will follow the Syllabus. In the second class I opened by telling them "That schedule I talked about last period? Forget it, we are following the syllabus." Then I wrote out the whole damn topic on the board: Extraction of Metals. Listed the main questions and the new words / terms I would cover. Then outlined the lesson and wrote out the lesson, sentence by sentence - Ext'n of Metals consists of (1) Concentration, (2) Reduction, and (3) Refining. Now, the methods of Concentration are ... (yawn) ... Density (examples), Magnetism (examples), Floatation (examples, and diagram of a Floatation Chamber). The Reduction methods are ... YawwWwwn... etc etc The kids LOVED it. I practically got an ovation at the end of the period, they didn't want me to stop! I was now teaching like a Tanzanian, and they didn't have to think or correlate ANYthing, just copy stuff down to memorize. So much for innovative teaching methods. But otherwise, it got a little dicy this week. Back on New Year's Eve I had caught some kind of virus, who's main symptom was a high fever. Now I woke up on Wednesday with a fever of 102 again, plus some abdominal pain that radiated to my right shoulder. I taught my classes, but otherwise spent the day sleeping. Things didn't really get better on Thursday, so on advice from Headquarters, I saw a doctor in Mwanza who decided that my liver was enlarged and I probably had a gall bladder problem that should be investigated right away. When PC Medical heard these results, they called me to Dar es Salaam ASAP, packed to be ready for Medical Evacuation to South Africa. Fortunately I don't teach on Friday, so I caught the first plane out of Mwanza on Friday morning. Naturally my fever was almost gone by now and I actually felt fairly good. But I underwent a full battery of blood tests and ultrasound at the Aga Kahn Hospital yesterday and got the results back today (Saturday). I feel a LOT better today, I am glad to report, and according to the testing, everything is normal, definitely no enlarged liver, and definitely no stone or anything unusual about kidney or gall bladder. Or spleen or pancreas or anything else inside there. Good news! Well, OK, my white blood cell and platelet counts were low. But that sure sounds a lot better than being a walking time bomb for a gall bladder attack! Unless something strange happens, I'll stick around until Moday and fly back to Mwanza, having missed only one day of teaching. While I am here I have been staying with Lori Peters, MD, the head of the PC Medical Staff. We went to dinner with other PC staff and had a very interesting evening last night, a wide ranging discussion of Tz, the Peace Corps, Life... And it was pure luxury to sleep on a good bed in an air-conditioned bedroom and enjoy a hot shower. |
