my email is not working today, what's new?

That last post was quite rushed. My schedule is different from day to day. History and Geography, which I teach and am the only one who teaches them, are not considered very important in Singapore. At the level of Secondary 3, it is an elective and so I have one history class with only 4 students, and one geography class with only 13 and never the twain shall meet. In my other classes, which are not electives, the class size is between 25 and 30 students. For two days each week, they take history and for two days, Geography. I suggested, since these are the same kids taking both classes at the same time (for example Secondary 1 history and Secondary 1 geography contains the same students), that the two could be combined. That idea was immediately shot down. My point was that rather than treating the two subjects as completely seperate, I could look for ways to combine lessons and lesson plans. On days when history required more time than the limited amount I'm offered in two days per week, I should be able to use geography time; and vice versa. No go. In addition to this I have one half hour of social studies per week in 6 different primary classes from primary 3-6. I have no experience with kids as young as primary 3 and 4 and so this is a real challenge. Also, trying to make a half hour class worthwhile while trying to learn nearly 180 names on top of the secondary kids' names is no small feat. Organization is key.

There is no uniformity between abilities at the secondary lever. One Secondary one class is mostly high functioning, capable of almost anything, the other is comprised mostly of students whose english is next to nil. The classes, therefore, cannot move at the same pace and the trajedy is that there are a few, and only a few, in the class with less english proficiency who could be and should be moving along much faster.

There are only two white students at the school and I am told that one of them experienced some racist harassment earlier today. I have this class for history and geography in two hours and this will be a focus of my lesson, the problem is that by many of the students, I am barely understood. We'll see how it goes.

On weekends I am not connected to the internet and so, this will be my last post until monday. I am very much looking forward to the weekend. My roommate and I are hosting a Mexican dinner tonight, she is cooking, and tomorrow I have big plans--among them to see how many forms of transportation my friend and I can take without resorting to taxi.

I was observed in a primary 4 class earlier by the principal and it did not, by my calculations, go as planned. The students seemed not to remember anything we had talked about before (it WAS a week ago), and I panicked. I'm told that she's very understanding but I was surprised (though surprisingly surprised, all things considered) that she would choose to observe me with an age group I am so ill suited to teach.

I hope all is well with everyone (that's a pretty unlikely), but with me I couldn't be better. Really. This is the best I've felt in ages.