I’m giving the first ever Lunch Detention today at school. Some of the kids did so poorly on their homework, and some of them did no homework at all. Because there are so many people in class and there is no attendance taken at school, I have to come up with a system to make sure justice is served. Here it goes:
There are three columns of desks in each class that I teach. I call the rows up one at a time to the front of the room to retrieve their notebook. Every single student must get out of their seat, even if their book is not up here.
I stand at the front of the desks and let them pass to sit down, only if they have a book. The remaining students must sign the paper I have sitting on the front desk. I watch as they write to make sure they don’t try to write illegible.
After all the students go through this process, I start the second phase. I have the students give their notebooks to the person behind them. The people in the last row give theirs to the front desk. Then I have everyone open the books and find the two assignments. If any of them say, “SEE ME” they are to raise their hands for me to collect to books.
I go around and grab the books and put them in the front of the classroom. I have to original owners come to retrieve their books, but first they must sign the paper.
After this ridiculous process I explain to them what it means to have their names on this paper. Lunch Detention. They have ten minutes to eat their lunch, then they must meet me back in the classroom to finish or improve their work. They will continue to stay in detention day after day until they are excused by doing what I asked the first time around.
This same process is repeated for my S2 class. Afterwards we split into groups and I give them the posters I made with math questions. They work in groups to solve the problems. For the second half of the class I do what I did in S1 and review the upcoming exam, giving them some of the exact questions on the midterm.
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I have fish for lunch with everyone at the Volset office. I usually would not eat fish in the States, but I don’t mind it here, because I need some protein in my life. I rush back to school to start detention.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t a hassle to get all the kids into the classroom. There were two students who did not show and I wrote their names down and gave them to a student to give to Richard.
They worked on their homework and I excused two students who had their work finished. One of them did a really great job and I was very happy to cross his name off of the list.
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In the teachers lounge Harriet and the others kind of laugh about my detention, like everything else I do here. And then the same old caning discussion takes place. Harriet is drilling me about the alternative methods I’ve suggested and defends caning as successful. I end my conversation with a defeated sigh and start packing up. Harriet doesn’t look up from her newspaper but says, “I like your way of disciplining by the way. From now on I’m going to do the same thing with detaining students during lunch.”
“Really?” I’m surprised. She looks up at me from her paper and nods her head yes.
Just then, two kids show up to the room. They have been caught skipping. Richard turns to me and says, “How would you deal with this?”
I look at the girls and get a little upset. I demand, “Who pays your school fees?” They look at the floor, like every other student here that is asked something by a teacher. “Who. Pays. Your. School. Fees?”
Harriet tells them in Luganda that they need to answer me. One girl says that her mother pays, the other tells me it is her father.
“It’s easy, is it? To afford to send you to school?”
They shake their heads.
“What do you think they would say if we let them know you have thrown their money away? How do you think they are going to feel when they found out that they worked really hard for you to purposely miss class? I think maybe we should send a note home to explain what you have done.”
They do not like this idea. The other teachers take my lead and talk to them in Luganda.
Good ‘ol guilt trip. After the girls leave I tell them that sometimes talking to students is enough, but in this case if they did it again, I would send a note home and require that it be returned with a signature.
Richard brings up a good point that the parents will probably just beat them. I suggest that instead, they should be given some work around the school to teach them what it costs to have an education. Maybe they could cut the grass or work in the kitchen serving food during lunch.
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After school I go the barber that gave me my 80s haircut, and had him cut off my beard. He was being so careful and gentle. He left a mustache on my face and it looked hilarious. Finally I asked if I could just do it myself. I took the electric razor and took off all the hair. Then he shaped up the back of my neck. I’m a new man. Actually I feel more like a boy. And look like one too.
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Mom calls me tonight to tell me that Bishop at home said it’s ok to put up the letter I wrote to the ward asking them if they’d like to help me get some clothes for the kids here in Nsumba. She said a lot of people want to help. I’m so happy. Then she tells me that
A few minutes after getting of the phone with my mom,
I laughed and we talked about how crazy it was that something is inside of her growing and moving around.. so weird. I’m going to make him a shirt that says, “Adam is my Uncle.” I got the idea from my cousin Amber who went to my other Cousin Kayla’s basketball game with a homemade shirt that said, “Kayla is my cousin.” Ha.
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