Today was a bad day at school. The children were no less impulsive than yesterday. They cannot even follow simple instructions. I know that my accent must be challenging for them but it seems that some understand while most do not. I looked in their notebooks and found neat rows of printing and computation questions that were clearly copied from somewhere. When I wrote five simple questions on the board for them to copy and complete they couldn’t even do it. I showed several examples but still they could not complete the task. In a class of 25 only 2 were able to finish and get all of the questions correct.

In a class of 25 students 12 did not have notebooks. Many did not have pencils and only 2 had pencil sharpeners. How are they supposed to do their work without these basic things? Everything is a chain of command. I have to beg for pencils and books. I am not given anything in bulk. I must state clearly which items I need and how many of each are required. I have to get any notes I wish to send home approved by administration.

Upon my arrival at school at 7:10 students are sitting at their desks waiting. From that time until about 8 o’clock students slowly trickle in. They are to be picked up for home at 12:00 but as I left for a meeting today at 12:45 about 4 students were still wating to be picked up.

At break time a memo was passed around about a meeting to be held at 1:00. The topic of the meeting was an upcoming sports day. We were discussing playday type activities for children to participate in. It was made clear that children must practise these games so that when their parents come to watch them on sports day they will look skilled in events such as bean bag balancing, obstacle course, three legged race and egg and spoon race.

I felt my stomach turn over when the principal suggested that we should use some of the time taken away from our arts curriculum to practise for these events. We were told to practise twice a week for an hour. It was made clear that the main purpose of sport is not team building or cooperation but competition. The children are out there to compete.

I was shocked when they began to debate about the date for this even. People wondered if it would be best to hold it on a Saturday or on a Friday. I was relieved when a consensus was reached for Friday. APPARENTLY THE PARENTS WON’T SHOW UP ON A WEEKEND.

Teachers are expected, although it is not copulsary, to stay 3 days a week for athletics. This means staying until 3:30 with only a half hour break away from the students. I am not sure what to do. I know that this heat is killing me and the idea of baking outside while coaching a sport I know nothing about is like torture. I don’t want to seem difficult though. I will find some sort of compromise.

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