11/08/10

A frustration today. I am most of the way through the first of a double period this morning when the maintenance guy asks if he can speak to the kids. He has a list of all the kids who didn’t do the cleaning work they were supposed to last trimester (in Mozambique the students are responsible for sweeping the classrooms, doing the yard work on school grounds, etc. and we have specific days when students are supposed to come to do these things, but usually many don’t show up) and tells them that if their name is read they have to leave school and come back this afternoon with a hoe and they aren’t allowed to return to class until they have done so. After he was finished reading the list I had only 22 of my 45 students left sitting in the classroom. I didn’t want to teach new material with so many students missing, so I thought on my feet and we spent the second period playing Hangman and Sudoku together. First trimester this really would have frazzled me, but now it doesn’t surprise me at all. I taught two more classes of kids today, in one of them most of the students were present so I was able to give the lesson, but in the other there were too many kids missing once again, so we reviewed old material and then played games.