10th July
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| One of my "school uniforms" - Kira & Taego |
This time next week school will be back in full swing. Day 1 is Thursday, and I am scheduled for SOD
– staff on duty. This means arriving at
school, dressed in my kira etc, by 6am to supervise morning prayer. Despite the ridiculously early start (for me)
I have found myself adjusting to the earlier rising: the fact that many of my neighbours are up
and about by this time does not enhance my sleeping late. The walk to school is along the unpaved road,
an absolute mud bog outside the gate to where I live, but I don’t think I will
ever tire of the view of the valley or the beauty of the school prayer wheel.
Morning prayer is for the boarders – around 130 of them, and
is rather a special time, apart from the need to keep an eye on some of the
students to ensure they are doing the right thing. Prayer is very much a part of their
upbringing, their culture, and I feel very privileged to be part of this.
The boarders range in age from class PP (6 year olds) to
class 8 (some of whom are up to 19 years old – no hesitation here about holding
a student back if they are not passing.
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| The prayer wheel at Kheni Lower Secondary Schoo |
Many, but not all, of the younger boarders have older
siblings who are also boarders but there is one little boy who does not, and
some of the older boys take it in turns to help him with washing his clothes,
bathing, etc. This caring for younger
children is very much part of the culture and it is not uncommon in the villages
to see quite young children with babies strapped to their backs with the
handwoven shawls that are commonly used for this purpose.
Morning prayer is followed by morning study – required to be
undertaken in silence, and then breakfast.
Breakfast, like all meals, includes much rice, and I never
cease to be amazed by the quantitative of food that the small boys can
consume. To see the tiny six year olds,
with their bowls heaped to overflowing, always leaves me wondering where they
put it all!
One day in morning study I was intrigued by sqeaking noises
coming from the direction of one of the boys and he confessed to having a
fledgling tucked in his gho – he had picked up this little bird which was
having difficulty flying. These boys can
be as rough and tumble as any, but sometimes very gentle too. One helped me to plant my tree on national
tree planting day, and to see the care with which Yeshi, a big boy in class 8,
was breaking up the cow manure with his bare hands and carefully placing it around
my sapling was really quite touching.
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| Dishwashing after a meal |
Breakfast and dishwashing (assuming the water supply is
working) is followed by morning social work.
I should have mentioned that dishwashing is, of course, done outside
under the cold water tap.
Morning social work includes sweeping of the multipurpose
hall and classrooms, the assembly ground and paths. I have been trying to encourage wiping of the
multipurpose hall tables to remove the spilt food – it just makes conducting
the occasional unit test easier if I don’t have to avoid the puddles of tea or
dhal when handing out papers. The social
work also involves gardening and picking up litter – wrappers of foodstuffs and
snacks that are not supposed to be brought into the school, but….
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| SUPW - Socially Useful Productive Work - making beautiful gardens |
The litter problem is ubiquitous. Like many countries that have been recently
introduced to western foodstuffs and it wrappings, litter is often discarded at
random despite attempts to educate otherwise.
Assembly, with further prayer, the unfurling of the flag,
singing of the national anthem is also an opportunity to the dissemination of
information; announcements are made, for both students and staff, and there are
usually prepared speeches – one in English and one is Dzonkha – delivered by
class 7 or 8 students. As SOD I am required
to comment on and give a mark for these speeches. I seek assistance in relation to the Dzonkha
speech! Sometimes I understand the whole
of the speech delivered in English.
Classes start at 8:35am and there are 7 periods in the
day. Classes generally finishes at
3:20pm, with an hour for lunch. My best
day gives me 3 free periods and my busiest day, only 1. Classes are also scheduled for Saturday
morning, with 3 periods before a reading period and social work.
As well as my own classes and preparation and marking,
students also seek me out to correct their English portfolio writing. I am now making them ask me in full
sentences, rather than putting a notebook in front of me while saying only
“Madam, portfolio.” The correction of
their limited command of the English language can provide entertainment, and
that should be the topic of another blog.
One category of errors so common that it is almost ubiquitous is the
inappropriate use of articles. IF articles are used, the definite and
indefinite are often used wrongly;
articles are associated with proper nouns and the word “one” often is
used as an article. And as for the use
of apostrophes……
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| Class 7B Classroom |
Classroom facilities are pretty basic: blackboard, chairs and tables for the
students, wall space allocated to teaching-learning materials for each
subject. I should specify that
teaching-learning materials (posters, or “chart-papers” as they are best known)
are generally hand prepared by the teacher.
Early on in the term I ask my students for ideas for
beautifying their classroom, and my delightful class captain, Namgang, brings
me a neatly written letter with ideas for improvement and in due course I
purchase some cloth for them to put on the wall. My request for them to bring containers for
pot plants for the windowsill elicits no response, but as most are boarders,
this is not surprising. Plant pots are
usually reused containers, and some of the most decorative around the school
are made from old vehicle tyres.
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| The proud recipient of a lapel pin for most improved |
If I am returning a marked assignment or test to the class,
I will identify and reward not only those who achieved highest mark, but those
who showed the most improvement
from the previous similar item, and those who
have shown the best continuous improvement through the term. Recognition and rewarding of the latter does
elicit quiet shows of pride amongst the students concerned, and the class
acknowledges their efforts with clapping.
I was intrigued early in the year to make one such presentation to a
class 8 boy, to not receive the same level of response from the other boys, so
I asked them about it and they said “but, it’s Yeshi” I take it that Yeshi was not a high achiever
or hard worker last year; this year he
has moved on to achieving well, and often receives top mark for a piece of
work.
We are told at workshops that we should be aiming for 21st
Century teaching and learning; I
sometimes find this challenging with lack of access to technology, classes of
over 30 (I am lucky, some schools have over 40) and classroom sizes that are
not conducive to rearrangement of the tables for group work plus teacher
movement amongst students. To say
nothing of students whose favourite classroom activity seems to be copying from
the blackboard. Sometimes I tell them I
just want them to think about and discuss a problem, that I know they can copy
from the blackboard (albeit not always accurately), and early on this seemed to
elicit great puzzlement.
I do try some level of differentiation for my students;
somewhat essential given the ability range – I suspect the IQ range to be
probably more than 80 points. Class 7
mid term exam results ranged from 9% to 98%.
As well as identifying different problems for the more able students,
and providing more blackboard based, simpler problems to supplement the text
book for the lower ability, I am sometimes preparing and teaching double
lessons.
Teachers normally go home for lunch and I am often asked
whether I have prepared my lunch in the morning or whether I will be preparing
during midday. Actually, given that I
did buy a fridge, lunch is usually leftovers from dinner the night before. However, on my SOD day, I am required to
supervise lunch – a cooked lunch for the boarders – and so eat the food they
are eating. I recall being asked by a
colleague early on what Australians call the “nutella”, soy based balls that
are used as a meat substitute in curry.
The closest I can think is the textured vegetable protein (TVP) that
occasionally made its way into bushwalking rations, so I just say that it’s not
a food I know from Australia.
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| Older girls helping the younger girls with reading |
During lunch, and sometimes during the morning break or “interval” we see some of the older girls
helping some of the younger girls with their reading. A lovely pastime and so important to this
national year of reading.
I am supposed to check the toilets during lunch break, but often
when I am SOD the water is off, so I pass on checking the amenities.
After school is afternoon prayer, which goes for 30-40
minutes if the day has been at all stressful, the prayers refocus me and I feel
more peaceful – provided the naughty boys are not too naughty.
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| Students helping each other during remedial class |
There is a break after afternoon prayer and before evening
study, and 2 afternoons a week I conduct remedial classes for those students
who are not performing well in class. I
do not enforce attendance at these although I do identify who should be
participating. When I first announced
the remedial classes many students wanted to be part of it, including some of
the much better students.
Evening study is also for the boarders; I see some of the
very young boarders attempting to sit for an hour and do nothing, as they have
nothing to do, and I encourage the older students beside them to give them work
– from practicing writing their letters and numbers to writing out their
multiplication tables. It’s not
mind-blowing stuff, but is useful.
Sometimes I want to get my class 7 and 8 students to practice their
multiplication tables – many do not know them and it seriously impacts their
mathematical progress.
I was most intrigued during evening study just before exams,
to be asked for assistance with IT revision.
Apart from the fact that their text book and questions is Windows XP
based and my computer preference is Mac, I was most amused to be asked by one
of my students for study tips. I
suggested that those I had talked with them about and encouraged them to use
during maths lessons and for their maths study would also be useful, and
received back questions about whether the techniques were applicable to any
subject. These dear students never cease
to amaze me with their innocence and naivety in so many (but not all) areas.
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| Boarders' Dinner |
This is followed by dinner, and rice features once again –
it is, of course, the staple in their diet.
Dhal is one of the accompanying dishes and depending on the day, the
curry will vary, but is only meat on special occasions. Potato curry, dried fish curry, some are
tasty, some less so, but there is always plenty and the dish is predictable –
not only did they have it for lunch, but they know what they will get on any
given day. A bit like home cooking when
we were kids!!
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| The school kitchen: fairly basic facilities to cook for more than 130 students. |
After dinner the boys continue study in the multipurpose
hall and the girls return to their hostel to complete evening study there. My final duty for SOD is to ensure the girls
are returned to their hostel. I may then
return home, around 7:30pm.
The school principal (addr
essed as Principal, Sir) very
kindly came to relieve me during the evening meal during my last SOD, since the
road was a bit muddy (understatement, sometimes the progress, or lack of, of 2
wheel drives through the mud outside my house provides lots of entertainment) and
he thought it best that I walked home in full daylight.
My evening meal is normally followed by quite an early night
on SOD days!
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