The trimester is over. I gave 550 students grades for the trimester, and the whole thing ended with an uncharacteristic whimper. I forgot to bring the exams to the night classes tonight, then during the make-up exam I was giving, the "office boy" decided it was time to go and he turned off all the lights, leaving us in the pitch black, with unfinished work. I was angry. But I let that pass in about 20 minutes.
I got here and Jurcia, Violeta and one of their friends were here cooking because their own power had been cut. The house was full of the wonderful aroma of lentils, tomatoes and onions from dinner that Jenna had prepared, and Lisa and Nanosh were sitting around, basking in the busyness. It was hard not to relax pretty much straight away.
Now that I've essentially got just one trimester left before I'm out of here, I'm thinking about how I can put all of myself into it - but I'm sure that will happen in any case.
I've been dealing with one of my students lately who has an excessive number of absences - about 60 over the course of the trimester (which is the equivalent of missing every single class for two weeks straight) and didn't bother to get them excused until this past week. She first complained of vision problems, then uteral problems, now her child is ill, and so she's unable to come to school, etc. It's not that I don't believe it -- she had the proof -- it's that when it comes down to it, she isn't coming to school. And she tried all sorts of backward methods to get around it, like altering the attendance book, forging teachers' signatures, getting other teachers and staff members to go over my head, and so on. I just don't understand. It would have been so much easier to either come to class (she's very unmotivated) or just drop school altogether, because she's got important things to attend to that clearly preclude coming to school. What's her motivation? What is a 10th grade education going to do for her if she's not there for it? Even if it's only for the certificate, what is she going to do with that?
There's some missing link here I just don't see - I don't know whether that is because of cultural differences of because I refuse to believe that someone would choose to pay to go to school if they didn't really want to get anything out of it. Is it just for the social life? Is it for her parents? Maybe I'll figure it out, maybe not.
My plan is, let her stay in school but under close sanctions - she must justify all absences within one week or I call her parents again. She has a problem with lying and I'm determined to try and show her that she doesn't need to lie.
Peace
John
