Monday:
Monday was “Abertura.” Some officials from somewhere in the hierarchy
of the ministry of education sat at table with our director in front of all of
the teachers and couple hundred students to give some speeches about hard work
and expectations blah blah blah. No one
was listening because we were distracted by the giant mango tree that shaded
the whole assembly. The tree must have
been a distant cousin to the apple trees of Oz. Its aim was impeccable.
Tuesday:
Attendance during the first week of
school was even worse than Mireya remembered from last year. Turns out the 8th graders she
taught last year were just excited about starting high school. Unfortunately 11th and 12th
graders… or 9th and 10th graders for that matter… don’t have
the same ambition. Neither do the
teachers.
I showed up to school at 6:15 on
Tuesday ready for my first class which was supposed to be at 6:30 right after
singing the national anthem and morning announcements. I was the first staff member at the school
besides the janitors. There were a few
kids milling around checking to see which class they were in and if their
schedule was posted (which it was, thanks to my scrambling over the
weekend). Half of the teachers hadn’t
even bothered to pick up their schedule, the school hadn’t posted the list of
students in the 8th or 11th grade classes (meaning these
kids had a pretty good reason for not going to class since they didn’t even
know which one they were in), and the doors to the rooms where I was supposed
to be teaching were still locked. Those
doors remained locked for the rest of the day for all I know.
I did learn that both of my 12th
grade classes would have 52 students each.
Compared to horror stories I had heard, that sounded like a manageable
size. I hung around the school for a
while longer, talked to teachers, found a handful of my students by chance and
introduced myself, said hi to the director (who didn’t show up until around 9
by the way), and Mireya and I went home without seeing a single student enter a
classroom.
Wednesday:
On Wednesday the school finally
posted the 8th and 11th grade class lists. The lists showed 82 students in each of my 11th classes!
Still didn’t teach any students,
though.
Thursday:
I love surprises! Our neighbor Selimane, the 11th
and 12th grade math teacher, also helps a little with the computer
end of the matriculation process.
Therefore, he has the inside scoop on a lot of administrative
stuff. Much to his dismay, the manual
end of registering students had gotten WAY OUT OF HAND. Turns out those lovely, intimate 82-student
11th grade classes actually now have over ONE HUNDRED STUDENTS
EACH. Just in case you were wondering,
the classrooms here aren’t any bigger or smaller than the average US high
school classroom. The kids will be
packed in like sardines. Winter won’t
come soon enough because in the current summer heat, I imagine the room will also
smell like it’s packed with sardines…
Oh yeah, and of my 300+ students,
not one of them showed up in a classroom on Thursday, either…
Friday:
I spent my day off day dreaming
about what could possibly be in those giant boxes containing our new lab
supplies! Apparently there are 3 mobile
labs – one for biology, chemistry, and physics.
With the director’s blessing, I posted a notice for all of the science
teachers to meet Saturday morning to go through all of it.
Saturday:
I had one goal for Saturday: OPEN
THE LAB BOXES. Mireya warned me that I should
take my goals and resign to only getting a quarter of the way through
them. I thought my bar was low enough
already. Surely I would be able to open
the boxes and at least peek inside.
Nope. The assistant director took
the keys by accident. We couldn’t even
get into the room. What I did learn was
that I have at least three science teacher colleagues who are reliable and show
up on time AND OUR SCHOOL HAS COMPUTERS!!!!
Our director made no mention of these!
A room full of brand new computers! So while I still don’t know anything
about our lab equipment, Saturday was by no means a loss.
Well that’s my first week of “school.” Hopefully I’ll be able to tell you about my
first actual teaching experiences very soon.
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