Day 11 – May 12
Today was both a rewarding and bewildering day.
Rewarding because I had the students of the Form I classes stand up in front of their classmates and talk about their daily routines, and they pulled it off fabulously. A week ago they had neither the skills nor the confidence to stand up and do something like that, and today they performed really, really well. They were happy and so was I.
After a double period with 1B, I went to the 1A class to find about 12 of my 38 students there. Virtually an empty room. “Where are they all?” I asked.
“They’ve gone to fetch water,” was the reply.
“During English class?!?! When will they be back?”
To this question, I got replies ranging from 12 o’clock to 4 o’clock to 10 o’clock. That’s because the Swahili clock works on a totally different system from everywhere else in the world. Our 7:00 is their 1:00, and so if a student says that she takes a bath at 4:00, you have to know that she means 10:00. It’s pretty bizarre and difficult for a Westerner to get used to, but similarly the Form I students, in their first year of using English full-time, are also having to cope with the change in clocks – especially confusing since they work on Swahili time at home.
In any case, the message that came out was that the water was far away and that the students would not be back for quite some time, likely not before the end of my double period. That was disappointing as I had wanted them all to have a chance to speak about their daily routines, but I had no choice and had to improvise. We played a few English games before I got them practicing their routines and then I had them come up and say them to their classmates. Again, they did incredibly well.
Returning to the staffroom after almost 3 hours of teaching, I found it empty but for one teacher. Where had all the other teachers gone? By the din emanating from the classrooms, I could tell that none of them had any teachers in them. The only teachers left on the grounds were me and another, newly arrived temporary teacher. I knew only that the headmaster had gone into town in the morning to get supplies for the students’ lunch.
I had finished my classes for the day, and the other teacher diligently carried on with hers during the periods scheduled, but aside from that, the kids were running amok with absolutely no supervision. I kept thinking about how such a situation could never possibly happen in a Canadian high school. Imagine: an entire high school full of kids with no principal, no VP and just one foreign guest teacher and a newbie substitute. Imagine what would happen if word were to get out about that or someone were to walk in and find this.
Today, in fact, during the chaos that reigned, there was a visit from a parent that was returning with her child after a short bereavement absence. She had a lot of difficulty finding anyone to talk to. The vice principal from neighbouring Mawella Secondary also popped in when I was sitting alone in the staff room. “Where are all the teachers?” he queried.
“I have no idea,” is all I could say. And he just chuckled and left.
It makes for an amusing story, but it’s sad really. Of course, kids being kids, they’re going to play when the teachers are not around, so you can’t blame them. But they’re not getting any sort of the education they should be because of the neglectful teachers here.
Later, after talking to the headmaster, I found out that he had allowed two of the teachers to go into town to visit the Regional Education Office to enquire about pay issues. “Fine,” I said, “but couldn’t they have gone at the end of the day…or even somewhere towards the end? Why did they leave at 10:30 in the morning?” He didn’t really have an answer for that and had no answer for where a couple of the other teachers had gone. Clearly, he’s got a tough situation at this school and he’s likely the most dedicated person there, but for a principal, even he certainly could be cracking the whip a little more. Things are supposed to get better when the second mistress (vice principal) returns from maternity leave in a week. Then, there will always be someone in the administration that is always around and keeping an eye on……the teachers.
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