school woes

School started again and I was welcomed by warm hugs, queries into how my holidays went, and comments to how I'm getting fat and the number of pimples on my face. I have gained a little weight (bored eating and less running than when I was in college) but not enough for anyone but me to notice. One teacher told me that I lost weight. I'm convinced that the comments on my size and complexion are as meaningful as discussing the weather. I'm trying to smile and ignore the comments plus tell myself that anyone bigger than me isn't allowed to tell me that I'm fat. Since only big mamas inform me of my size. . . this plan seems to work well.

For the first couple of days I was busy, actually busy, working on the school timetable for two of my schools. At the third, they had already completed it. I looked it over (not hard to do when it's on the chalkboard and in the staff room) and proceeded to ask questions. My big points: why do some classes have more periods than the national guidelines and the number of periods per subject differ per class? I should have expected the answers. More time is spent on languages because a lot of learners can't read in grades 4-7. The extra periods were taken from Maths, natural science, and social studies. I argued my best for more time in all three, but it was in vain. The time allocation per subject is unbalanced because the last three periods on Friday are not taught and any old subject was thrown in to fill the space. The reason that the last three periods aren't taught is that everyone from the circuit down doesn't work on Friday afternoons. Specifically, one of the teacher's unions supports the Friday afternoons off. I've already noticed that none of my teachers take work home at night and workshops, meetings, and athletics are scheduled during school hours cancelling classes. Grading and class planning is either not done or done in class leaving breaks free for gossip. This translates into four six hour workdays and Friday mornings. And I wonder why they think I'm working so hard when I'd define it as doing nothing. I keep planting the seed that teaching is a hard job and that good American teachers work just as hard outside of school hours as during. I'll keep trying to think up alternative phrasing.

Another issue is Limpopo Province's insistence on temporary teachers. Temporary teachers fill a postion in the school and work as teachers just like the permanent ones. The difference is that they face losing their jobs at the end of each term if the school can't justify their exsistence. Many of the temporary teachers in my schools have been teaching at that school for over five years. Each school should have a learner to teacher ration of 35:1 (translating into classes of 30-55 in real life) and the temporary teachers keept the ration close to what the government says it should be. In December, I discussed planning for the coming school year but the principals and teachers were wary because they didn't know how many teachers they would have in 2006. The decision was finally made in January and the schools started on January sixth for the teachers. Mmera was told by the circuit office to welcome two teachers from a school that closed (last year it had 18 learners and this year none came). They were quickly given a class, introduced to the rest of the teachers, and started to get used to the new environment. This morning, the circuit manager came and told them thtat they need to go to another school. The new teacher cried!

Finally, I've started to notice the different school management policies at my schools. My key school has the school management team (SMT) make all the decisions: assigning classes and committees to teachers, how many classes in each grade, and which things to spend the school budget on. The decisions are then told to the rest of the teachers with little discussion. The SMT even set it up so that they taught less periods per week than the other teachers. The other teachers accepted the changes, but weren't happy that they were excluded from the decision making process. At my other schools, the teachers all sat down and decisions weren't made until there was a concensus. All the teachers need to be present and nothing happens until they are. At one school I comforted the teachers who felt jipped and at the others I pushed the teachers to move ahead.