Friday, October 30, 2009

Quick Update

I finally got my but in gear and gave my students a quiz. In fact, after being sick and missing half a week of school, because for me I only teach for 4 out of 6 days each week, I decided it'd be a good time to give each class a pop quiz. I'm sure they weren't pleased, but I'm the teacher. Plus I specifically told them they must study outside of class: they wrote that down as the final expectation for the class.

Giving the quiz was the least of my worries. Luckily, one of my colleagues told me to let him know when I'd be giving a test or quiz, so he or someone else could accompany me in class and help watch the kids and keep them from cheating or at least try to. I had him help me with my 6e class. Grading the quizzes was the “fun” part. Let's see, I learned that there are 121 students in my 63 class, 101 in my 5e, around 70 in 4e, and around 50 in 3e. So no matter how simple I can make a quiz, grading still takes time. And then I add an extra step of alphabetizing the names, because that saves time when recording their grades, les notes.

So, you'd think when I got to the third to last name I'd be almost done grading, right? Well, you would be oh so wrong. Half of my class was made up of Traoré's! Heck, three names, including Traoré and Coulibaly make up ninety percent of my students! It gets so crazy with the names here, that students have to add de plus a letter and sometimes de plus two letters to distinguish themselves from other students with the same name and prename.

I did manage to grade them all and after finally assigning homework for the first time in 4 weeks, I decided to collect that from 2 classes and grade it! Maybe I'm a closet masochist.

Oh, home news, I finally caved in and bought a battery and light. But I chose the much cheaper and easier route. Instead of dropping 150 mille on a solar panel, car battery, and light and prise setup, I just got a lower voltage battery and one foot-long florescent light. And let me tell you, it literally lit up my world. I smiled the first time I turned it on when it got dark. That alone told me a made the right decision. It should last me about a month and it provides me with a couple more hours of light each night which are very much appreciated.

Here's how it happened. I was talking to my tutor friend and he said if we're going to continue with tutoring, it'll have to be after school and it gets dark within 2 hours after school lets out each day, so I'd need a light. I went back and forth and didn't know if I wanted to spend my money on that. Plus, I didn't want to just buy one at the marché, because I'd have no way of telling if it was a good quality or not. So, my tutor buddy got in touch with a friend about a battery and light for me. Friday morning he sent me a text saying I could meet his friend at the marché about the battery. I found a familiar friendly face. It was the same man who helped me find hooks for my house. He called the man who sells batteries and told me to do go do my shopping around the marché, so he could get it for a good price. One of my students and neighbors came to find me after the battery was dropped off. After realizing the first connecting wire was a dud, my friendly-neighbor-man, the father of my student neighbor, helped hook everything together. He's also the person I will go to when my battery needs to be charged. Charging it will be very cheap.

Yesterday was my C.E.G.'s (my middle school) conseille de rentrée, the meeting each school has each year to discuss the schedule, when grading is due, discipline, possible extracurricular ideas, collaboration, etc. Shouldn't that happen before classes officially start, you ask? Why, yes, one would think so. It sounds like you're lucky if it happens a day or two before classes start. My schedule changed a week ago, this is the fourth week and we just now got our notebooks to write down absences. But then we don't have a list of students, so we couldn't actually take attendance! We should have that by next week. We'll see!

I'll have to tell you about my meeting next time. I need to catch a bus back in a few. Until then.

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