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Tuesday, October 9, 2012

School Supplies

A fixture among supplies for the US school is crayons.  They are a rare find here. I'm guessing it's because it's so hot, they would melt.  Instead the students use colored pencils.

Butcher paper is nonexistent.

Same with construction paper.

I searched high and low for filler paper, and finally found some.

The binders are two-hole instead of three.  I'm not a fan.

Students use notebooks that are about 8" X 6".  They buy their own.

There are no electric pencil sharpeners.  The manual crank ones are available, but the small hand-held ones are what's used the most.

A standard size piece of paper is referred to as A4.  The large 12" X 18" size is called A3.  The smaller size I referred to earlier is A5.

Finding whistles was a real chore.  When I did finally find a store that sold them, I bought them all.  A whistle is a must in school crowd control.  We issued them to all staff at my schools in the US.

We're still waiting for textbooks.  We have whole classes without them.

There is no book or set curriculum to teach English.  This makes for interesting living.  Our current Western staff comes from Houston, Phoenix, Detroit, San Diego, Omaha, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Sacramento (me), Huntsville (AL), Columbia (SC), the U.S.Virgin Islands, South Africa, Ireland, Haiti, Canada, and Australia. We all speak English, but the way we approach teaching and learning is as varied as the places we come from.

The folks who are over curriculum for the government schools are from New Zealand, where this methodology of no set curriculum is used.  Apparently teachers utilize whatever books/curriculum they want, with no evidence of whether they were successful in reaching their students or not, apart from their records. They don't give country-wide exams until 10th grade, whereas we begin state-wide testing in 2nd.

Different way of doing things, for sure.

It's only 6:30, but I'm tired and headed to bed.

There were eight teachers absent on my side alone, with one sub.

Crazy day.

We have a break in a couple of weeks, and I'll be on the road again.

I'm looking forward to it.

Good morning to you.

Good night to me.




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