Results For "Month: September 1996"

More rain–two days of good weather are history. This morning I saw the grey sky and thought, “Good, back to normal.” After all, who wants sun? Who needs a bright day? This is just another new things I must get used to, I guess.

I had a word with the headmistress of the primary school. I went in with the intention of dropping my hours in classes V and VI. As might be expected, things got a little more grey than I was hoping for. Here is the situation: The Minister of Education requires eight hours of English in classes V-VIII. Because of the current situation, the Ministry has said that only four will do for now. I took those hours but now am having second thoughts, particularly about V and VI (see 16 September entry). So I talked to Pani Dyrektor about this and here is a summary of the outcome:

Those two hours (V & VI) would have to be picked up by someone, namely Danuta. It is not acceptable for VII and VIII to have English and V and VI not to have it. So if I drop those hours and Danuta doesn’t pick them up, the whole English program would have to be dropped and replaced with Russian. Never mind that there is no one here to teach Russian; rules are rules.

Now Danuta cannot possibly pick up those hours: She’s already teaching five more than she agreed to. With her studies it is impossible. Danuta assures me, though, that Frank will insist that she take those two hours. And if she refuses she could be fired.

That would make for an interesting situation. Instead of needing one teacher they would need two; instead of lacking two hours, they would lack twenty-five. Additionally, if Danuta left I would have to change sites because I must have a counterpart teacher–Dierdre already had to change sites because of a similar problem. So they would have to find three English teachers and they would lack forty-seven hours of English.

I made the decision to continue on the current plan until December. I didn’t want to drop this whole load on them at once, so I’m giving them time to intensify their search for a teacher. (Considering that my light still isn’t fixed, I doubt they’ll meet with much success.)

I hate the way this is turning into a power struggle. If I unload the preceding bomb (and that’s really what it is) on Frank, I risk angering him, for it has the feel of (maybe genuinely is) a power play. I don’t want to anger him so early–I need all the friends I can get at this point.

What I am afraid of is that once these four hours (only two really–I’ll continue with VII and VIII) are covered, the hunt for a teacher will not be as much of a priority. This is only a temporary fix; those lacking two hours should serve to stoke their efforts, to increase the sense of urgency. “Well, we do have Gary and ____ covering those four hours now . . .”

This whole thing is turning into a nightmare. I fear that once I drop these two hours Danuta will be pressured to take these to hours, and she will cave to the demands. “Can’t you live with this? Can’t you solve this problem instead of running away from it? Isn’t that part of the reason I joined PC to begin with?” I don’t know what I’ll do. I’ll survive–we’ll survive. It’s just the method of survival seems so vague–cloudy, like the typical sky here.

I don’t what to do about IIB. They are all chronically uninspired. “To say they are apathetic is to ascribe to them an enthusiasm that is not there,” as I told Chhavi. They are totally unresponsive. I think some of it is attributable to the language barrier, but certainly not all of it. I don’t know what to do about it. IIA is usually pretty bad at the beginning of lessons, but they usually give it some effort later in the lesson: I can live with that. But IIB–words do not describe my level of frustration with them. The group of disruptive guys in the back makes things a little worse, if that’s possible.

One thing that is really bothering me is the difficulty I’m having with names. They’re so, well, foreign. It takes me such a long time. I doubt I will ever learn the names of the kids in 5-8.

Speaking of my primary hours, I had a brief discussion with Danuta about the problems I have there. First of all, one hour a week is practically useless. I will not be able to do anything other than teach them to parrot a few things. Second, the language barrier further impedes the learning process. I have no way of making sure they really understand what I’m talking about. (I think in this case Polish is not only acceptable; it is down-right necessary.) This also makes it difficult to test them, and therefore hard to give grades. Last, and most significant in some ways, the classes are too big. Thirty twelve-year-olds–it’s impossible to keep them under control (i.e. language barrier), even if I could speak Polish like a native. So I have thirty wild kids with only two or three listening to me, probably understanding less than half of all I say. It is a waste of everyone’s time, I fear. I will give it a few weeks, then talk to the headmistress about my thoughts, my fears. Of course Danuta was right when she said that eventually I’ll be asked to teach the additional four hours the Ministry of Education requires. I will flatly refuse. I will patiently wait and see what happens . . .