26/05/10

In schools in Mozambique, when the teacher enters the classroom they greet the students and all of the students stand to return the greeting in unison. Today I was teaching when I heard the class next door saying “bom dia professor!” I looked down at my watch—19 minutes into a 45 minute lesson.
I make tardy or or students who didn't do their homework sit on the floor. My first hour this morning I had 28 students on the floor and 12 in seats.
Today Ann and I went into town to buy some things to take our host families in Namaacha because we are visiting them tomorrow. I ran into one student who I had embarrassed last week when I asked him in front of the class “is math important to you?” when he said yes I asked “well then why did you fugir my second class yesterday?” (fugir I think translates best as “to get the heck out of there”) We had had a double period the day before and he had snuck out after the first hour, thinking I wouldn’t notice. Today when I saw him I asked what he was going to do after he was done selling things and he grinned and responded “do my math homework of course!”
A few meters down I ran into one of my students who actually gets passing notes on all of her exams, but didn’t show up to hers last week and also wasn’t there for the recuperation, so she has a zero on the first exam. I asked her where she was last week and she said she was sick, so I told her she needed to get a justification slip from the secretary’s office for her absence so I could give her a make-up test. She said she would, I hope she actually does. I have about 10 students who just didn’t show up to my math exam and apparently don’t care, because they haven’t sought me out yet to ask for a make-up opportunity. The sad fact is that they have been in the system long enough to know that when it comes to the end of the year and the school needs to have a certain percentage of kids passing, a certain number of kids will just get bumped along, so they might just be hoping they are one of those kids. My student who can’t read or write didn’t take his math exam (along with others) but he must know better than anyone that there are other ways to pass the grade.
I ran into another student (actually we ran into about 15 more) who asked us “what language do you guys speak when you are together, American?
Leaving tomorrow for a few days.