Back to business, or is that vacation?

It has been a long time since my last entry here, but I hope to get myself back on the blogging track starting today. I have made it to the internet for the first time in 2 months thanks to a series of internet outages in Moshi when I happened to be in town. Funny how that works. I finished my first term of teaching school here, and I am exhausted from it. It is a lot of work to teach 34 periods of math and physics per week. I just really feel bad for my kids who had to deal with me. I have taken in a few bits of wisdom from my students and fellow staff members:

1. Don't be a pushover. They can sense it from a mile away. Before you know it all your homework is handed in a week late, or not done at all; you are typing tests for every subject in the school without even knowing; and all you are doing ten jobs on top of your 34 periods.

2. Students love to cheat. If you put 60 students in a small classroom of course they are going to cheat. What else would they do? The question is how to stop it. Which leads me to think 3 versions of each test are needed.

3. Staff meetings are terrible. I remember in the states they were bad, but when they are all in a language that you don't understand and they last for 5 hours during the school day when you could be teaching. My life would be better without them.

4. If you give people a chance to try something, many of them will. I have been extremely happy with my form 3 students. Many of them came into the year barely speaking a word of English in an English medium school (of course I am the only teacher at school who uses the language). Now many of them practice there English on me and I am able to teach in almost pure English. It is wonderful to see them try and great when they succeed.

5. Students here have very low expectations of their teachers. By just coming to class and trying to teach, I am automatically the best teacher in the school. This is not a good thing. The fact that many teachers find it okay to just write notes in English and send it with the students to write on the board is horrible. How can you learn by reading information in a language you barely understand?

6. Students love to talk about sex. I started a health club at the school and they have so many questions. It has become a great form to work with the students on protecting themselves from HIV/AIDS and other STIs.

7. The more hands on your class lesson is, the more the students like you. If you want to see a bunch of students fall asleep, teach them about quadratic functions using just a chalk board.

8. Vacation is essential. When your life revolves only around school for many months at a time and you have a break from that school, sieze it! Go to the beach, go to eat good food, just do anything. Only problem with this is that it involves leaving the village and getting hassled by all the people who think you are just another dumb tourist who is going to hand them money for nothing.

9. You have to reward the students. Comments like good job, very good, excellent, keep up the good work, and you're doing great go a long way. Giving away candy, pins from the us, or other prizes really gets kids going.

10. The most important of all is just to be yourself. The best thing I have found is that the more normal I am, the better I feel about myself. A little wierdness goes alongway.

So what am I going to do with this information? Well, I am going to try and enjoy myself and school more for the next semester. I am going to make my students turn in their homework and keep them to a strict schedule for tests and labs. I am going to learn how to say no. And mostly I am going to take more vacations. This begins with two safaris this month to keep me sane. Stay tuned...