Read previous post first, please.
Winnie told me that most parents really struggle to say school fees. In fact, over the weekend everybody who had outstanding fees got sent home, which is about a third of the student body. That's frustrating because now I'll just have to reteach everything once they return. Anyway, but it's painful to think of parents making sacrifices to send their daughters to school and then the girls can't be bothered to even take notes in class.
We got a new girl last week. She had grade 8 test scores high enough to go to any school, but she couldn't even afford the cheapest regional school. She finally found a sponsor who agreed to pay for her to come to my school. In term 1 the math teacher covered seven chapters, and so far I've done three more. I thought I'd be dooming her if i didn't help her catch up, so I wrote up some notes for chapter one and gave her some homework, saying take your time, thinking it'd take her about a week. She handed it back to me the next morning, all questions perfect. Now, less than a week later, we are already on chapter six. She is so smart and hard working. She got 12 points on the quiz and she missed most of the chapter. I badly want to just brush away the ones who copy homework and spend all day doing really fun and hard questions with her.
On Monday mornings we have assembly and the principal usually rips into them pretty hard on things I think are pretty small. Like after church, apparently some of them gave some kids some money to go buy donuts for them, and lately they've been speaking to each other in their mother tongue DURING SCHOOL HOURS! I don't see the harm in a donut now and again but I do see the harm in not knowing how to multiply when you are 15 years old. I'm thinking of taking the law into my own hands (what's the word I'm looking for?) and creating some sort of demerit system that takes away privileges... fortunately the only privileges they have are the ones I'm about to bestow (that is, the electives) so I don't see any of the other teachers taking beef with that. But ugh, so much to organise, and so many guns to stick to, you know? With some lovely lovely exceptions, they really are a frustrating bunch sometimes. Maybe tomorrow or soon I'll blog about the ones I love because there really are some sweet ones, too.
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oh man, my parents definitely leaned heavily on the guilt of how much they were paying for my education so i had better not even THINK of wasting their time and money by slacking off. i'm surprised these girls' families aren't doing the same..!?
ReplyDeleteis 'vigilante' the word you were looking for? as in, 'Lisa Farlow, Vigilante Teacher'?
ReplyDeletealso, good teachers are the ones who bother to care. you are a good teacher. don't stop being one because some students are ungrateful.
Yes vigilante! Good one! And also, thanks, bru. -lise
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