School Daze

This is a typical view from my desk under a shady tree at one end of the school. I usually don’t have much business at school if I don’t have a class, but I show up and do some sort of work every day because if I don’t the next time I go everyone tells me ive been lost, which get annoying once it stops being funny. I get it from people that I don’t even talk to and sometimes it can take on an accusing tone, meaning a mixture of you should be around more and what do you have do that’s more important than us? Its just part of the community atmosphere. Anyway, killing time at school got way better once I started sitting under that tree instead of the stuffy teachers lounge. It also works better for students who want to ask questions because they are fearing (Uganglish is starting to enter my working vocabulary, I am going to suck at English when I come home) to come into the teacher’s lounge. If they do, they have to be ridiculously formal, greet every teacher and risk being ridiculed for stupid shit like not having their shirt tucked in while they just stand there and take it until the teachers decide to dismiss them. Not only does my tree give shade and refuge to students, it also gives lemons! When I’ve had enough school I reach up and grab a few lemons and go make tea.

Most of my students failed their midterm, which was written by the teacher I took over from and was composed of roughly 10% material I actually covered. The high score was 54/81, low was 2/81, and the average 19/81. There is wicked combination here of a difficult curriculum adopted from the British, and poor teaching by rote. I decided to hold review sessions at night to go through the entire midterm and try to catch them up. On especially bad tests, that basically consisted of writing down numbers and symbols in random order, I wrote at the bottom: you are going to fail MTC unless you come talk to me. Since then more of my students have been trying to talk with me in the schoolyard. They’re going to be surprised when they fail. What? We did the thing he said! I should have been more specific. During one review session, it got loud enough I had to yell to hear myself and I resorted to telling them I can wait for you guys to be quiet and pulled out my phone and started texting. Not the best approach but some of them thought it was funny and it worked for a while, but then I had to do it again. Well, one girl who actually wanted to learn got sick of this and while I was facing the board snuck out of the class with a list of names of the kids who were talking the most and handed it to the teachers on duty. A few minutes later, the teachers come to the class and ask for those students. I figured they did something stupid earlier in the day, or skipped cleaning or something so I let them go, didn’t think much of it and went back to the board. A minute later I hear the snap of a flexible stick connecting with the students. The kids are marched back in and the teachers tell the class to be quiet. It worked. No one said anything the rest of the class, but I was pretty uncomfortable. After class, a few students told me what happened,and I affirmed that I won’t ever cane them, I think it’s stupid, but what could I do? I guess I indirectly caused it, leaving that girl feeling like he had no other option. Since then when they get rowdy I sometimes want to tell them: look I won’t cane you, but if I stand here silent long enough someone will get you caned because some of you actually want to learn this crap, and that one degree of separation is enough to ease this conscience!

Discipline is the biggest problem here for me, I’m not much of an authoritative figure and I don’t like pretending to be. I remember school, it was boring. Math is as well if its too easy or you are completely lost. And I can’t take it seriously enough to try to convince freshman in high school on the merits of math education. Which is too bad because I do want to do a good job for those who want to be there. My solutions so far have been mostly brute force, I can get louder than they can. In my small class it was fine, I knew them better and if someone was talking I could make fun of them a bit and figure out if they were lost or bored and go from there. But with the range of ability in my large class I really can’t win. If I go slowly and explain adding fractions for the 20th time I get audible sighs from the brighter students in front which sucks because I feel more obligated to them. If I go too fast I lose ¾ of the class and then they start to talk. I definitely have a new understanding for why teachers are always complaining of large class sizes.


Last week we had a student vs. teacher soccer game. The teachers took it very seriously. We had matching jerseys, soccer socks, cleats and wouldn’t let the students warm up with the ball before the game. Most of the students were barefoot. I’d say half the school came out to watch, and they were loud! I only lasted 15 minutes because I got a nasty burn on my leg earlier in the week and my bandage kept falling off. I thought it might, so I brought an extra and some tape. Once it fell off I knelt down, fixed myself up and got up and kept playing, the students watching must have been confused. I think I surprised them, some of my middle school soccer skills are still there and I could hold my own, but I was the only one walking up and down the field, only running when the ball came near me. So now they think I’m a lazy muzungu. I hate running as it is unless I’m chasing something or being chased but the heat and altitude make it especially miserable here. At half time the teachers got out packet of glucose to re energize. Surprisingly the final score was only 1-0. This was a classic battle of good vs. evil. Thankfully the students were able to exact some revenge on the teachers that cane them. I can imagine the cane being bearable if you’re imagining yourself running circles around the fat ass whos caning you.