Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Inhambane, Conselhos and Craziness
It´s been a while without a post, and thats entirely because Eli and I have been so busy lately! (Also, the computer is just a pain to use sometimes). We just finished conselho de nota last week, which is where you record the students grades. I always thought that teachers just submited their grades to the school secretary, who put them into a computer, printed off some report cards and mailed them out. (I´m probobly not close at all, which shows how much attention I payed as a student). Let me remind you that in Nacala, our secretaries have type writers, not computers. The teachers tabulate all the grades for their students by hand. It is a very complicated system. Unlike in the US the students are divided up into turmas, or classes that remain fixed through out the year (for example, within 10th grade there is 10A-10J and they never have classes with kids from other turmas, even though they may be in the same year). Each turmas has a director- or director de turma. I happen to be director of 11C, which has 91 kids.
During conselhos there is a lot of work to do for each turma, so they break it down into jobs. I was the president for my turma, I had 2 secretaries and a vocal. The vocal reads out the grades from all disciplines, the secretaries are each copying the grades onto two pautas (a gaint grade sheet) and I copy the grades into the grade book, or livro de turma, for the class. We have to go through and do the grades for all 91 students in every subject. In pencil. Then we double check, and if its good, go over it in pen. Then I have to copy all of the grades that the student recieved for the year into their personal file. After that I calculate the percentage of pass-fail for men and women, then get all the teachers to initial the stats for their discipline. I also need signatures for every person that worked on the pauta. Finally, I have to write a cover sheet detailing when were and who worked on the pautas. Yup. It was a fun time. I also was secretary for someone elses turma. Eli, who is not a director of turma, just had to give grades to other teachers, but that was complicated because a lot of times teachers didn´t show up when they were supposed to. We were also really worried that they would change our grades, because some teachers were talking about having a minimum grade of 7. I gave several 4´s and 5´s (out of 20) because I just don´t believe in changing grades. I figure if other kids in the turma can get a 17, its a fair class.
Quick story: Eli and I were at home the other day when a fisherman showed up at our door. He was selling lulas (squid), and he had them strung up on a line. We bought 10 big squid for $2! Easily enough for 3 meals with leftovers. It is very cheap (and tasty).
Ok, so now I am in Inhambane for the boys conference. It´s very interesting. Some weird stuff has gone on, such as the students demanding that we give them a subsidy. I´m not having a bad time, but the atmosphere is a little odd. We did go to the beach today, and everyone had a great time, although it rained on us a little. The surf here is really strong and it´s a good time to play in the water. More later on this, since I´m still here.
As for Eli, she´s going to the IST (in service training) this week. She has certainly had an intersting adventure and I will let her tell it when she has a chance. Hope everyone is doing well.
Paul
During conselhos there is a lot of work to do for each turma, so they break it down into jobs. I was the president for my turma, I had 2 secretaries and a vocal. The vocal reads out the grades from all disciplines, the secretaries are each copying the grades onto two pautas (a gaint grade sheet) and I copy the grades into the grade book, or livro de turma, for the class. We have to go through and do the grades for all 91 students in every subject. In pencil. Then we double check, and if its good, go over it in pen. Then I have to copy all of the grades that the student recieved for the year into their personal file. After that I calculate the percentage of pass-fail for men and women, then get all the teachers to initial the stats for their discipline. I also need signatures for every person that worked on the pauta. Finally, I have to write a cover sheet detailing when were and who worked on the pautas. Yup. It was a fun time. I also was secretary for someone elses turma. Eli, who is not a director of turma, just had to give grades to other teachers, but that was complicated because a lot of times teachers didn´t show up when they were supposed to. We were also really worried that they would change our grades, because some teachers were talking about having a minimum grade of 7. I gave several 4´s and 5´s (out of 20) because I just don´t believe in changing grades. I figure if other kids in the turma can get a 17, its a fair class.
Quick story: Eli and I were at home the other day when a fisherman showed up at our door. He was selling lulas (squid), and he had them strung up on a line. We bought 10 big squid for $2! Easily enough for 3 meals with leftovers. It is very cheap (and tasty).
Ok, so now I am in Inhambane for the boys conference. It´s very interesting. Some weird stuff has gone on, such as the students demanding that we give them a subsidy. I´m not having a bad time, but the atmosphere is a little odd. We did go to the beach today, and everyone had a great time, although it rained on us a little. The surf here is really strong and it´s a good time to play in the water. More later on this, since I´m still here.
As for Eli, she´s going to the IST (in service training) this week. She has certainly had an intersting adventure and I will let her tell it when she has a chance. Hope everyone is doing well.
Paul
# posted by Paul and Eli @ 10:39 AM 
