Fights in the classroom!
Hello again!
Well it's been another week since the last update so it's time to let you know what has been happening in the life of Adam and Ellie.
I have managed to annoy most of teachers at the secondary school El and I teach at this week. We found out last Monday that the children have to pay 145,000 tzs (2500 =1 fine British pound!) for their first year at school and 20,000 every year after. This covers their uniform, teachers wages and lunch etc. However as the school only opened in May all of the students are new and therefore all of them are paying 145k. I was so shocked to learn this as 145k is a huge amount of money in Tanzania and so it was no surprise that over half the school has at some point been sent home for non payment of fees! My shock kind of turned to anger considering the "can't be bothered attitude" of most of the teachers who don't teach their lessons and just get a child in the class to write something on the board.
We decided to confront the teachers that weren't teaching when they were supposed to in an attempt to bully them into their classes. This was partially successful and some of the teachers appreciated what we were saying. The situation detriated further on Wednesday when I had to leave my lesson, run into the other class, fight my way through a chanting crowd to stop two lads beating each others brains in (during a history lesson!). The reason for the fight is not important but it happened because there was yet again no teacher in the classroom. As you can imagine given our recent conversations this incensed both of us and we ended up having a heated discussion with the teacher concerned. This seems to have done the trick as all of the teachers went to their classes today when they we supposed to be there without any hassling from us. Success at last!!!!!
On a positive note about school, the English lessons are going really well and the children are getting better at actually interacting with each other during the lesson. It has been difficult to get them to do anything that isn't just copying off the board as this is all that they are used to. They are enjoying the lessons so much that we are going to run lessons at the school during the Christmas holiday (all of December) and it looks like the majority of the school is going to come.
Well it's been another week since the last update so it's time to let you know what has been happening in the life of Adam and Ellie.
I have managed to annoy most of teachers at the secondary school El and I teach at this week. We found out last Monday that the children have to pay 145,000 tzs (2500 =1 fine British pound!) for their first year at school and 20,000 every year after. This covers their uniform, teachers wages and lunch etc. However as the school only opened in May all of the students are new and therefore all of them are paying 145k. I was so shocked to learn this as 145k is a huge amount of money in Tanzania and so it was no surprise that over half the school has at some point been sent home for non payment of fees! My shock kind of turned to anger considering the "can't be bothered attitude" of most of the teachers who don't teach their lessons and just get a child in the class to write something on the board.
We decided to confront the teachers that weren't teaching when they were supposed to in an attempt to bully them into their classes. This was partially successful and some of the teachers appreciated what we were saying. The situation detriated further on Wednesday when I had to leave my lesson, run into the other class, fight my way through a chanting crowd to stop two lads beating each others brains in (during a history lesson!). The reason for the fight is not important but it happened because there was yet again no teacher in the classroom. As you can imagine given our recent conversations this incensed both of us and we ended up having a heated discussion with the teacher concerned. This seems to have done the trick as all of the teachers went to their classes today when they we supposed to be there without any hassling from us. Success at last!!!!!
On a positive note about school, the English lessons are going really well and the children are getting better at actually interacting with each other during the lesson. It has been difficult to get them to do anything that isn't just copying off the board as this is all that they are used to. They are enjoying the lessons so much that we are going to run lessons at the school during the Christmas holiday (all of December) and it looks like the majority of the school is going to come.
posted by Ellie and Adam at
4:07 AM
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