First Week at the School

Tuesday, Oct. 4, Kovalam

Today’s schedule was less hectic than yesterday’s. It was nice to have a couple of short breaks. And I read the newspaper during my after-school break.

My first meeting with Ms. Jolly went okay, I think. She seems as open to ideas and help as can be expected.

Two things upset me, and I talked to Joseph about them:

For the second day in a row, I was left alone during tuition (guided study hall) with the students. I don’t know the school rules to make proper decisions, and I don’t want to accept responsibility for a class. I am here to volunteer—to assist others, not to do their jobs for them. I expect a teacher in the classroom with me at all times.
Miss Jolly has a problem that many math teachers have. She assigns homework that she hasn’t taught the children how to do yet. Then she spends the next day teaching them that and makes another assignment over new, untaught material. There is no way for me or a parent to HELP the students during tuition or at night, because they have no idea what to do! We are left with having to teach them from scratch on nights like this. I have to talk to her about this tomorrow and make sure she understands the importance of assigning ONLY work which she has already taught and the children have already practiced in the classroom. Joseph could see how frustrated I was over this tonight. I had had a long day at the school and then had to use hours at night to teach something the students were supposed to have learned and just be doing for homework. What I really wanted to do was write, “Students have not been taught how to do this yet,” on their notebooks and send them back to class with the problems not done.

Wednesday, Oct. 5, Kovalam,

Today was a difficult day. Two teachers were out. Then one of the bus drivers had to leave because of a death in the family. I brought the hostel children home and stayed with them while everyone else watched the other children at the school until they could all be carried home.

Joseph hasn’t had a free moment. It’s 8:30 p.m., and he is still gone. He had a staff meeting earlier this evening to discuss the crisis, and now is gone to take the principal home. It’s too late for her to catch buses home, since the trip requires 3 transfers.

This school is a big undertaking. I can’t imagine worrying about and dealing with everything Joseph does. It’s definitely not a retirement for him! He has a school with 9 grade levels (including teacers, parents and kids who go along with those grade levels); he has a physical faciltiy that inclues a 4-story hostel (only 2 floors occupied now), a 3-story school, playgrounds, two large buses, and a mini-bus; and he is a surrogate parent to the hostel children keeping them entertained and helping them with homework in the mornings before school, the evenings afterwards, and the weekends (since some of the kids do not go home even then).

Thursday, Oct. 6, Kovalam

The bus driver was still gone this morning. Since Joseph had to make trips in his car to pick up the students, he left me in charge of the children at 6 a.m. When he’s not around, however, they try to get out of doing everything. I finally got them started on exercises. Then Joseph had asked us to clean two pathways rather than jog as they often do. We took 2 sycles and a rake. Of course, all of them wanted to use the dangerous sycles, yet none would really make an effort once they had one in their hands. For 15 minutes they piddled around. Then in 15 minutes, I did over half of the work myself!

It’s now 6:30 p.m. I’ve been up 13 ½ hours, and I wish I could go to bed and skip dinner (which won’t be served for two more hours. I’m still alone in charge of the hostel kids, however. I’ve had no free time all day. I’ve either been in charge of the hostel kids, in the classroom, or working in Joseph’s office preparing for a workshop he wants me to do on Saturday—the monthly in-service day for his faculty and that of another school. I haven’t left the compound in two days. And since Sunday, I have only been off campus 3 times—Monday night to spend 15 minutes at the cyber café, Tuesday morning to pick up my bag I forgot at the cyber café, and a 10-minute walk on Tuesday night. I’ve had no further chance to check e-mail to see if there is news of my father, and I am not sure when I will have a chance. I am hoping to leave school during the afternoon tomorrow.

I think I’ve prepared some good materials for the workshop on Saturday. Of course, they will be no good to me if we can’t print them. I guess I’ll find out whether that can be done tomorrow. I have an outline for lesson planning with explanations of the purpose for each section. I have a sample mathematics lesson plan in the great detail I use for my own planning. Then I have the same lesson plan abbreviated to the level that most competent teachers would plan. I also have a sample English lesson plan so that teachers who are not math teachers cannot complain that it was all math. Finally, I have a sample of a timeline for yearly planning in Math. Tomorrow, I hope to create a model of a scope and sequence chart in mathematics to provide a grade-level comparison of what is taught within the various strands at each grade level. I think I have two hours for the workshop, but I’m not sure. There hasn’t been a lot of communication, since Joseph has been so involved in this bus crisis for two days now.

Speaking of lack of communication, I am unsure what is happening the rest of this weekend. Earlier this week, the English/computer teacher suggested I should visit his village over a weekend. I didn’t hear a specific invitation. But today, he made a comment that makes me think maybe he wants me to go there this weekend. I hope not, because the hostel is supposed to have an outing to Abin’s home Sunday, and I want to go there. At the same time, I also want to visit the the English/computer teacher in his village sometime while I am here.

Friday, Oct. 7, Kovalam

Crises continue. I had to deal with the children early this morning again, because there still was no bus driver. Then I arrived at school to find there was no Ms. Jolly. Instead of working on a scope and sequence chart for my workshop, I had to take over her classes and teach them. Yesterday, several things happened. She expressed concern about being so far behind in Standard 7 (Grade 7) when compared to where they should be at this time. So Joseph asked her to meet with me and make a plan. He also told us there were problems in English that he was going to solve by taking some of the better English students and teaching them separately so they could do more advanced projects rather than being held behind by the slower students. He asked us to consider that in math, too. I met with Ms. Jolly. We made a plan to leave a chapter for later in the term so she could jump forward to a chaper where she should be. She didn’t like the idea of separate groups, saying she was worried about how parents would react. No one knew there was a problem until she didn’t arrive this morning. Now Joseph is afraid she is quitting and so am I. I don’t want to take over the responsibility for planning and teaching math to five classes every day. Anyway, I didn’t get to do the preparation I wanted to do today, and I didn’t get to take off this afternoon and go to the cyber café.

I feel I have my own crisis—needing to find out how my father is and needing to let people know I am fine. But the school has so many crises—the bus problem, missing teachers, etc., that mine get shunted aside. I don’t even feel comfortable discussing my problems with Joseph, since he is so tired from dealing with all his other problems when he gets back to the hostel late in the evening.

I really want to stay here and be a volunteer at the school. But will there continue to be so many problems that I am sacrificing too much by doing so? I’ll just wait and see for a few days.