We are now about two months into school and they changed the day schedule and the night schedule for about the 4th time since school started! To top it all off, they also neglected to tell most of the students AND most of the students about the schedule changes so this week has just been a mess of confusion. The reason for all of these changes is that we have had some new teachers come to the school and other teachers leave. My school is also only a couple of miles away from one of the national universities so many of the teachers at the school are also students at the university. To teach here, in Mozambique, the requirements are not very strict so many of the teachers at the school have only completed up to 12th grade and have no university degree. I am one of the most educated teachers at my school. They also call people who have completed university programs here "doctor" so I am frequently referred to as "Doctora Michelle" (which I find amusing). Anyway, the schedule had to be changed so many times because once the university schedule came out, many teachers realized that they could only work in the morning if they had to study in the afternoon at the university or vice versa.
A few weeks ago the school lost an English teacher (as I have mentioned before) and so I started teaching three sections of 11th grade English. They now asked me to take on some 10th grade English classes (because they also were without a teacher) and a chemistry teacher who was teaching in the afternoon is now teaching in the morning will take over some of my chemistry classes.
I do enjoy teaching English and I still teach chemistry to the night students so I am glad that I get to do both, but the schedule changes are driving me crazy! As soon as I become accustomed to a certain schedule, they just go and change it again! Let's hope this is the last change that will be made this year (or at least this semester).
It was tough making the initial change to not teaching chemistry as much in the morning because I had to leave a few classes behind and they were so sad not to have me as their teacher anymore! It made me feel really good to know that they liked being my students and they begged me to switch my schedule around and teach them chemistry. Unfortunately it's the boss' decision and not mine, but I truly am sad to not be teaching some of those kids anymore.
On the up side, lesson planning for English is SO much easier. I will also never have to worry about a student asking me a question that I don't understand or someone knowing more than I do! It is really fun to teach English too so I am happy to do it.
In other news, I woke up on Tuesday morning and walked outside my house to find that my dog had killed a chicken and was chewing at it on my porch. There were feathers everywhere and I was immediately terrified that I was going to get yelled at by one of my neighbors for my dog killing their chicken. To try to save myself from that fate, I picked up the dead chicken and disposed of it in my latrine and then tried to clean up the feathers as best I could. So far nothing has been said so I think I'm in the clear.
I'm working with a student theater group at school. It's a Peace Corps run and funded program called JOMA that exists in many schools in Mozambique. The students work together to create performances about important topics. My group chose six topics to work with this year includiing HIV/AIDS, sexual harrassment, drugs, and teenage pregnancy. It should be a lot of fun and also very interesting to hear the kids' ideas on these topics.
I must get out of this sweltering internet cafe now. I thought summer here was over, but I thought wrong. It's been 90's all week, and I also have a cold, which is no fun. Who gets a cold when it's 90 degrees outside???
No comments:
Post a Comment