Saturday, October 16, 2010

How School Works

Because I’m sure I’ve forgotten to explain important details, here’s the rundown.

Hours: 7am-5pm, with a 2-hour lunch break
Kids per class: 55-70
Kids who show up for the first few weeks of class: less than 60%


Boy-to-girl ratio: about 2:1
Female professors: I think 4 including me (all of the others are part-time), compared to 50+ male teachers


Administration: The directeur (my boss, the principal), the surveillent general (the VP/discipline guy), and the comptable (accountant). We also have a secretary, Adelaide, who’s 22 and took me to her tailor last weekend. Yay. : )
Number of English professors: two permanent (I’m one of the two), and maybe 5 part-time? Not quite sure, haven’t met them all yet.


Other subjects: a lot are in cryptic acronyms, but I know they study French, math, history/geography, and “sport”… the older ones study philosophy, too.
Length of each class: Depends on subject. English is in 2hr blocks, other subjects range from one to three hours.
Rooms: Students have one classroom, professors go to them. Sometimes a class doesn’t have an assigned room, and the prof has to go searching for one.


Corporal punishment: Officially illegal, but lots of schools use it as their main discipline tactic. Mine, thankfully, doesn’t, so I can use the administration to discipline when I need to (other volunteers can’t, so I’m lucky).
Uniforms: Mandatory, and all khaki


My schedule: I teach 3 classes of kids, 2 times a week each (total 12 hrs teaching, plus 2 in a weekly English dept. meeting). I have Tuesdays and Fridays off. A pretty light load, so I’ll need to start big secondary projects to keep myself busy.


Questions?

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