Curruption in Education

One thing you deal with when teaching overseas is, well, it is overseas. You are working in other cultures, with different outlooks, and different legal systems.

You may have to deal with out-and-out corruption which damages the educational system.

Example: Last year I had a student who JUUUUUUUUUUUST squeaked by and passed my class, but he was not so lucky in three of his other classes, where he failed miserably. He's a nice enough kid, intelligent enough, but he didn't do much work. When he was given chances to make up some work with some supplementary exams - he failed those too. The decision was made that he would repeat the year. Or at least, if he was going to continue with our school, he could repeat his 5th course (equivalent to US 11th Grade).

The parents didn't like this, and din't want to try to take their son to another school, so they "appealed" his grades to the Ecuador Department of Education. The department therefore legally changed his grade to 100% in all classes and he has legally completed his year.

So now, we are being told that this young man, who has been in 5th course again (and not doing well) may be pulled from his current courses and dumped into 6to Curso (12th grade). Of course, he has missed 25% of the year, and is totally unprepared  for school at this new, higher level.

As my eldest son likes to quote: "This can only end in tears."

Great Teacher Date

We must be teachers. We are sitting in Chili’s, here in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on a hot date. Of course, we are both teachers, so the hot date is sitting at a big table, munching on salsa and chips, while grading papers. Every few moments one of us will stop, and read to the other some wonderful, hysterical or pathetic passage written by a student, and we spend a few minutes dissecting the moment before getting back to marking. It makes for slow work, but it is a whole lot more enjoyable, sharing our student’s foibles with another.

Two pages is one page and a line, right!

We are early in our school year, down here in Ecuador, and first weeks are always fun. For my students who have not had me before, there is always a breaking in period as they get used to how I do things, and they test me to see if I am really serious about what I do.

The perfect example was the first research essay my Sophomores had to do. The rules were for a paper of at least two pages, plus a list of references, printed out, 10-12 point type, double spaced. The  students nodded, went away, and brought back their work. Most of the papers were less then two pages, often of 16 point type or larger, while even those slushy offerings were padded with meaningless, but pretty pictures.

I have a simple way of dealing with these offerings. I simply scrawl "Does not meet minimum requirements of this assignment"" in big letters at the top and return it ungraded. I let them know that they currently have a grade of zero, but if they rework it and turn it in within five days I will give them another chance. They will lose points for being late with the assignment, though.

By the third such essay, they will be writing fools!

International Day

Academy

International day at InterAmerican 

Today (Saturday) had a great time at International Day. All of the students and parents set up booths honoring their home countries - with information, art, and of course food. We had representatives from Norway, South Korea, the USA and a host of Latin American counties like Chile. I had some great food and played some soccer!

Frustrating Day

Some schools are organized - with a plan that is clearly communicated.

Other schools...

...are not.

So here we are, on a Friday, waiting. With the start of classes coming, teachers are hanging. We are hanging because the school hasn't decided what rooms each teacher will have (so we can't organize or decorate our rooms) they haven't established which classes each teacher will teach, because they are missing several teachers so haven't figured out how to cover everything (yeas, you know that you will be teaching English Lit, but will it be Juniors or Sophomores? It makes a difference).

So you do waht you can, then wait. Next week our time is supposed to be taken up in workshops, so no doubt the decisions will be made at the worst possible time, causing the teachers to scramble to get ready for classes.

So much for having lots of time to get ready for school to start.

teaching resources

I'm getting ready for a new teaching cycle, but I'm always looking for new ideas to use in the classroom. I ran across this book and i decided to order it, so I thought I'd post a link to it for anyone who wants to look at it.

Happy teaching!

First Day in the Books!

Mar 22 is back to school for teachers so here I am back into a work routine. If this statement seems funny coming in March, remember that school calendars in South America generally run from April to January. We are up early enough to get our animals taken care of and lunches packed. Then my wife gets on her bus and I get on mine. First day for teachers, of course is fairly simple. We get a couple of meetings, spend some time networking with the other teachers and seeing what everybody did on their vacations. Then we check out our rooms - I got a new desk! We got the schedule for the next two weeks - filled with requirements for turning in curriculum plans, developing diagnostic tests and teaching workshops. On April 5 the 1st Course (US equivalent is 7th Grade) begins classes, while the rest of the secondary school, including myself, begins on 6 April.

After school was over I changed and did a cardio session on the school track. While doing that I heard a yell. Some of my oncoming seniors were at basketball practice. While the ladies had a water break we talked a bit and briefly got caught up. Fun! This has been my best group the last two years, and now they are seniors. I have big expectations for them - and me - for this year, they are such good kids, and strong students.

First Day For Teachers - Ecuador Style!

I know it sounds funny to Northern Hemisphere teachers but today - 22 March - is the first day back for teachers on a new school year. The first week is on reduced hours - no classes starting at 7:15 - so for this week we come in an hour later. For me and the others who don't have a car, the school sends around an expreso (a private bus). Lisa was just picked up by her school's bus, since InterAmericano goes by the North-american school calendar, so I have about an hour to kill.

Excited? Yeah! But it is raining outside, and I have two bags of stuff I'm carrying in to get started organizing. Bleah! Maybe I'll get lucky and the rain will pass by?

Overseas Teaching Resource

Here is a great book that demystifies teaching overseas, the good, the bad and the downright pug ugly.

Vacation Winding Down

Yes, those sad words for a teacher, vacation is almost over. Since my school runs on the South American schedule - April to January, teachers come back March 22 to start getting ready. That's Monday! Actually, today is really my last day of vacation, because I told my wife I'd come into her class and give a presentation (her school works on the North American calendar, August to May).

Of course, it really isn't bad. It has been long enough that i'm missing the kids and getting eager for the new year to start. I am especially excited about my seniors this year. there are a bunch of good, dedicated students in this group and I expect good things from them. As a comparison, with last year's seniors I only had four out of 32 students take their IB exams in Business, and it was a struggle to help them get ready, while the senior projects from all of them were of poorer quality than I expect.

Frustrating, but then that senior class had the lowest overall academic scores in the 80-year history of our school. Just one of those things where we had a large concentration of under performing students in one year. There were a lot of smart kids in that class, they just would rather party than do their work. I never could find a way to really connect with that group, few teachers in our school did, and that is what was so frustrating.

This year, however, I'll have about 42-44 students, with around 25 going for their IB exams. A large group of these kids are extremely dedicated and competitive academically. A lot of them think it is a failure if they score a 95 on an assignment. I can't wait to see what they will be doing on their projects.

Back to School!

Back in the Saddle - With the Wife!

Even though my school is still out on vacation (it goes by the South American schedule with vacation in February and March)my wife's school follows the North American schedule and it is still going strong. At her school, Intermerican Academy of Guayaquil, has a program she runs where students can earn a Distinguished Honors Diploma by meeting several requirements, including completion of a research project. Tomorrow, I will be on a judging panel for the top seniors to present the results of their projects.

Once again, me in front of students!

Recruiting Fairs Almost Done

The Recruiting Fair Season is almost over. The largest one still left is:

Search Associates, Bangkok, The Westin Grande Sukhumvit, March 19-21

Teachers without positions now need to scramble to find a job.

Third World Health Care

One thing to always worry about when living and working in a Third World Country is Health Care. It is not just quality, but so often the crazy rules other countires have are even worse then we hear about the US system. Consider this situation:

My wife is bedridden due to pain from a herniated disk in her back. The Doctor prescribes a pain medication - 20 doses of 5mg each. I go to the one pharmacy in the area that carries that medicine. Can't help me. They have the medicine, but they only sell it in quantities of 30. Can't buy 30 because the prescription is for 20. They can'
t just call or fax the doctor to clarify or correct it, like a US pharmacist normally would do. Can't buy 20 because the minimum is 30. It takes a second roundtrip to the doctor and again to the pharmacy to get the medication.

Almost back in the swing of things

Curriculum Planning - Sub teaching - IRS Victory!

With the South American school vacation drawing to a close at the end of this month, I'm back to work, in more ways than one.

The biggest thing is I am working on new curriculum mapping for our IB Business Program. We are tinkering with how we develop some of the information for the students through the three years of the program. In the past it hasn't been that big of a problem because I taught all of the business classes. However with our student population I'm only going to be teaching the Juniors and Seniors, while someone, currently unidentified person will be teaching Sophomores. With another teacher in the mix, expecially one with (presumably) less experience than I, I am trying to make their transition smooth, with lots of materials available to help them get a handle on it.

I was also in the classroom today. Lisa has been having some back problems and couldn't make it today. When she called in early today Celia, her school's jefe in charge of getting subs, asked if I could fill in. So I ended up going from lounging about lazily to hastily scrambling to get ready. I taught two English Lit classes, Seniors for Hamlet to start. They were covering Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be..." Bad mistake to have a history geek and sometime actor like me running this class. I think they will be begging for Mrs Evans to come back soon! Then it was going over a Hawthorne short story for Lisa's Junior class.

While at her school I collected her mail and behold! A Check. We have been in a running battle with the IRS since 2005. We filed, but I made a small mistake. The IRS caught the mistake but misapplied some numbers to the wrong category and - whooop! the IRS said we owed them $50,000. What? It went so far as one time they siezed money out of a bank account to pay the "collection." Eventually we got through the taxpayer advocate department and finally the IRS understood the problem. The case is now closed and we received a nice check, returning the seized money with interest. Hey! The little guy can win! Of course it took several hundred hours and five years to get it fixed, but it happened. Now I can pay some bills!