Saturday, June 04, 2005
So, what’s been happening this week?
I heard from the Country Director in response to my request to end my service early, on Nov. 5. She said my reasons sounded valid, but a month is way more than they normally allow for an early Close of Service, and since she is leaving in August she will leave that decision to the next Country Director. I guess at least she didn’t say NO.
The money for the Essay Awards arrived from Yorktown High School, a check made out to the school, in US$. With the exchange rate difference, it gives us a little extra money and I was able to also buy pocket Swahili-English Dictionaries for the award winners. Overshot the amount of available money a little, but will make up the difference myself. No big deal. The bursar went to the bank this afternoon to cash the check, and found out that it will take three MONTHS for the check to clear! He says the school will honor the check without waiting for it to clear. Whew.
Final classes for the term were on Monday and Tuesday – a week of examinations started on Wednesday. I proctored (invigilated) a test on Wednesday. Was scheduled for another again on Thursday, but the test wasn’t ready. Still being typed. Along with a couple of other teachers, I sat around the staff room for two hours after the test was supposed to start, waiting for the test to be ready. It wasn’t, and the test was finally canceled. Glad I had taken a book with me to read – I’ve learned to expect ANYTHING here. No idea if or when this test will be given, or whether I am still an invigilator for it.
I think I have misread these tests. I’ve been preparing my own chemistry test like a standard end of term exam. Figured on covering the material, to include a few gimme questions for the students with less ability, aiming at a two hour test that some will finish early. But the geography test I invigilated was a full 2 ½ hours long, crammed with detailed questions, and for the first time, NOBODY left early. I responded to their pleas and gave them an extra 10 minutes. Talking with their teacher later, he laughed and implied that I had made a mistake – these tests are SUPPOSED to be impossible, duplicating the National Examinations as closely as possible so the students get used to their format and content. God bless the National Exams!
Anyway, the original test schedule indicated two days for my chemistry test, implying that one day would be wet chemistry on actual laboratory procedures, and the other would be a normal paperwork examination. But a week ago the schedule was changed and there was only one day listed for chemistry, today. I was glad for that – in my opinion the class is not yet ready for the lab test, and I needed the last few classes to finish presenting a section of material I wanted to cover in the test.
Yesterday I learned that the schedule I saw was “unofficial,” and the “official” one, locked away in an office somewhere, still indicated two chemistry tests, with the LAB test scheduled for today. I got that turned around by the administration, who also told the classes what I had been saying repeatedly: NO LAB TEST as part of the exam.
But the Head of the Chem. Dept., unknown to me, had been telling my classes that there WOULD be a lab test today, and so most of the students had studied only for it and not for my paperwork test. It initially seemed that the Head and I were at loggerheads, but then he said that the chemicals weren’t ready anyway. However, the students weren’t about to do anything but continue to insist on having the lab test. I tried to talk with them, but they would have none of it. So much for the exam. I had some stuff to handle with the school bursar, so I went to do that, and that took about an hour. Then I checked back on what might be happening, and the lab test was IN PROGRESS! Seems the Head of the Chem Dept DID have the chemicals ready, and also had prepared the lab test for them himself, including a volumetric titration and the analysis of an unknown.
I really felt undercut by all this, as though my authority here as a teacher is nil. But nobody else seemed to be taking it that way, including the students somehow. So the only thing to do was to keep that to myself, pitch in and assist in administering the lab test. Which I did. But this whole crap shoot of a school system is demoralizing and seems to run on its own momentum that nothing is going to change. Maybe if I had learned Kiswahili I would feel more a part of it, but the other Peace Corps volunteers who do know a lot more Kiswahili than I do (although that isn’t saying much) seem to also be going with the flow, for the most part.
I notice I’ve been drinking more, lately. I wonder what it is really like to teach in the US.
I heard from the Country Director in response to my request to end my service early, on Nov. 5. She said my reasons sounded valid, but a month is way more than they normally allow for an early Close of Service, and since she is leaving in August she will leave that decision to the next Country Director. I guess at least she didn’t say NO.
The money for the Essay Awards arrived from Yorktown High School, a check made out to the school, in US$. With the exchange rate difference, it gives us a little extra money and I was able to also buy pocket Swahili-English Dictionaries for the award winners. Overshot the amount of available money a little, but will make up the difference myself. No big deal. The bursar went to the bank this afternoon to cash the check, and found out that it will take three MONTHS for the check to clear! He says the school will honor the check without waiting for it to clear. Whew.
Final classes for the term were on Monday and Tuesday – a week of examinations started on Wednesday. I proctored (invigilated) a test on Wednesday. Was scheduled for another again on Thursday, but the test wasn’t ready. Still being typed. Along with a couple of other teachers, I sat around the staff room for two hours after the test was supposed to start, waiting for the test to be ready. It wasn’t, and the test was finally canceled. Glad I had taken a book with me to read – I’ve learned to expect ANYTHING here. No idea if or when this test will be given, or whether I am still an invigilator for it.
I think I have misread these tests. I’ve been preparing my own chemistry test like a standard end of term exam. Figured on covering the material, to include a few gimme questions for the students with less ability, aiming at a two hour test that some will finish early. But the geography test I invigilated was a full 2 ½ hours long, crammed with detailed questions, and for the first time, NOBODY left early. I responded to their pleas and gave them an extra 10 minutes. Talking with their teacher later, he laughed and implied that I had made a mistake – these tests are SUPPOSED to be impossible, duplicating the National Examinations as closely as possible so the students get used to their format and content. God bless the National Exams!
Anyway, the original test schedule indicated two days for my chemistry test, implying that one day would be wet chemistry on actual laboratory procedures, and the other would be a normal paperwork examination. But a week ago the schedule was changed and there was only one day listed for chemistry, today. I was glad for that – in my opinion the class is not yet ready for the lab test, and I needed the last few classes to finish presenting a section of material I wanted to cover in the test.
Yesterday I learned that the schedule I saw was “unofficial,” and the “official” one, locked away in an office somewhere, still indicated two chemistry tests, with the LAB test scheduled for today. I got that turned around by the administration, who also told the classes what I had been saying repeatedly: NO LAB TEST as part of the exam.
But the Head of the Chem. Dept., unknown to me, had been telling my classes that there WOULD be a lab test today, and so most of the students had studied only for it and not for my paperwork test. It initially seemed that the Head and I were at loggerheads, but then he said that the chemicals weren’t ready anyway. However, the students weren’t about to do anything but continue to insist on having the lab test. I tried to talk with them, but they would have none of it. So much for the exam. I had some stuff to handle with the school bursar, so I went to do that, and that took about an hour. Then I checked back on what might be happening, and the lab test was IN PROGRESS! Seems the Head of the Chem Dept DID have the chemicals ready, and also had prepared the lab test for them himself, including a volumetric titration and the analysis of an unknown.
I really felt undercut by all this, as though my authority here as a teacher is nil. But nobody else seemed to be taking it that way, including the students somehow. So the only thing to do was to keep that to myself, pitch in and assist in administering the lab test. Which I did. But this whole crap shoot of a school system is demoralizing and seems to run on its own momentum that nothing is going to change. Maybe if I had learned Kiswahili I would feel more a part of it, but the other Peace Corps volunteers who do know a lot more Kiswahili than I do (although that isn’t saying much) seem to also be going with the flow, for the most part.
I notice I’ve been drinking more, lately. I wonder what it is really like to teach in the US.
