Teaching

So I'll describe a typical day of teaching. Thursday, class started at 7:30 am. I was teaching sixieme, which is like 6th grade, so the kids are young and still small. We have not received our order for desk yet, so half the class sits on the floor. They bring little pieces of cloth or scarves to sit on. There's over a hundred students. This is my best class because I'm starting from scratch (they're the youngest) and they are motivated to learn. So I taught how to say and spell their names and where they're from. Two hours for this class gets really long. It's already hot by 8 am. At 9:30 class ends. They scheduled our school meeting for noon, so my 1:15 class gets cancelled. The meeting was originally supposed to be on the 8th but was cancelled due to Ramadan. The meeting starts promptly at noon thirty. It lasts for 5 hours, and includes a summary of pretty much everything that happened the year before at the school. Apparently they have a problem with so called “clando students.” These are the students that do not pass their grade and so they are stuck in the same class. But they refuse to be held back so they go to the next class and do the work, tests for that class. But when its time to do report cards, they do not get a grade for the work they've done in the wrong class, and they fail the class they're supposed to be in. Not to mention the time the teacher spends disciplining them and grading their papers. Students also do this when they have not paid their school fees. At the meeting cold water was served. There was one glass that everyone shared. Then we ate a meal of beef, sauce and manioc (no knife) and drank fanta.