Week 36 (25 – 31 Mar 2007)
This was my first week as Teacher on Duty. The fact that I’m writing it on 10th April probably says everything - either I have a bad memory and forgot about the blog or it was so tiring and busy that it took a while to recover. Both are partly true (bad memory and busy being true). So what happened? I took the morning parade every morning at 7.10am although some students were missing due to early morning training sessions for the football and netball matches on Saturday. I had to ask one of the students what they normally did and it seems that they can manage without a teacher present. The singing of the National Anthem – the Ugandan one in case you get confused – and the school song are better when the teacher makes signals to indicate they can’t hear anything. Towards the end of the week they were singing fairly well, possibly because I go them to say the words of a couple of lines each day to help the new S1 class to learn them.
When the toddled off to lessons I visited the dormitories to check if any students were ill and the state of cleanliness. The girls have interesting was of making (called ‘dressing’ here) their beds by folding the sheets and blankets in intricate patterns. The dormitory is generally bright and clean. The boys try to make sure the sheets and blankets are somewhere near their beds and store their other belongings in a variety of places, especially in the corridors. The aroma is often – well, typical of boys.
After the inspection, I sat in the staff room watching the world go by, doing some lesson preparation and listening to the staff chat when they arrived. Occasionally a student came for assistance such as medication or permission to leave the site. Diagnosing illness is not my forte especially when the diseases are different and it’s hard to see if they are paler that usual. The most common ailments were headaches and malaria but I also found a girl with worms. On her arms. Fortunately, other staff helped both diagnose and suggest preliminary treatments. Medicines seem to be distributed with more freedom than we’re used to and sometime other students do the dispensing. We believe some of the suggested treatments are incorrect, or at least need to be updated so we’ll check with our medical friends here.
The teachers on duty should aim to cover the day (from 5am to 10.30pm) between them but this seems to be a bit haphazard and you can find both on at the same time and neither at other times. Following Andrea’s week, the list was updated and a third person added to each week. I tried to ensure that we spread the load a little but wasn’t always successful as the other two disappeared of site and only told each other!
There are no written duties or expectations (yet) so we probably did more than other staff. For example, last week Andrea tried to get the students to sweep the classrooms and go to bed by 10.30pm but it was indicated to me that there was no need for me to stay in the staffroom beyond 9am. The first few nights, I was left on my own even though I thought I was keeping the other teacher company (he worked in his office then went home without telling me!).
Due to the monthly staff meeting on Friday, the assembly was cancelled so I didn’t get a chance to report my findings during the week to the school. They duty continued on Saturday and Sunday.
While revising the duty list, I realised that due to visitors and a conference, we had only one week left in which we could do our second tour of duty. That is next week – with both of us on at the same time. Should be interesting – or as my fellow teacher on duty this week described it – tedious.
When the toddled off to lessons I visited the dormitories to check if any students were ill and the state of cleanliness. The girls have interesting was of making (called ‘dressing’ here) their beds by folding the sheets and blankets in intricate patterns. The dormitory is generally bright and clean. The boys try to make sure the sheets and blankets are somewhere near their beds and store their other belongings in a variety of places, especially in the corridors. The aroma is often – well, typical of boys.
After the inspection, I sat in the staff room watching the world go by, doing some lesson preparation and listening to the staff chat when they arrived. Occasionally a student came for assistance such as medication or permission to leave the site. Diagnosing illness is not my forte especially when the diseases are different and it’s hard to see if they are paler that usual. The most common ailments were headaches and malaria but I also found a girl with worms. On her arms. Fortunately, other staff helped both diagnose and suggest preliminary treatments. Medicines seem to be distributed with more freedom than we’re used to and sometime other students do the dispensing. We believe some of the suggested treatments are incorrect, or at least need to be updated so we’ll check with our medical friends here.
The teachers on duty should aim to cover the day (from 5am to 10.30pm) between them but this seems to be a bit haphazard and you can find both on at the same time and neither at other times. Following Andrea’s week, the list was updated and a third person added to each week. I tried to ensure that we spread the load a little but wasn’t always successful as the other two disappeared of site and only told each other!
There are no written duties or expectations (yet) so we probably did more than other staff. For example, last week Andrea tried to get the students to sweep the classrooms and go to bed by 10.30pm but it was indicated to me that there was no need for me to stay in the staffroom beyond 9am. The first few nights, I was left on my own even though I thought I was keeping the other teacher company (he worked in his office then went home without telling me!).
Due to the monthly staff meeting on Friday, the assembly was cancelled so I didn’t get a chance to report my findings during the week to the school. They duty continued on Saturday and Sunday.
While revising the duty list, I realised that due to visitors and a conference, we had only one week left in which we could do our second tour of duty. That is next week – with both of us on at the same time. Should be interesting – or as my fellow teacher on duty this week described it – tedious.
posted by J & A McAdam at 9:25 PM
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