My First Project

My first project started at the beginning of last week. I was talking with the counterpart who I was co-teaching with about some of the problems he was having controlling his students. I told him that they are so unfocused and unwilling to do the work because they sit in the same class all day and only get a break during lunch. He was also complaining that there was no room in the faculty room since it is also shared with the Head of Department (HoD), the principal, and the clerk. I noticed that educators were always late and unprepared. They wouldn’t have the right materials or a “duster” and would have to wait for a student to go get one from the faculty room and office. I had always thought that the educators should remain in the same room and the students should move but now was the time to propose the idea since I had plenty of reasons why it would be a good idea.

I wrote a 5-page proposal last week Monday night and presented it to my counterpart and he took a whole day to read it and examine it. The next day he told me how much he liked it and that we should move forward with it. I asked the HoD how to approach it and she agreed with getting the support of all the educators before approaching the principal since the idea had been shot down before. I made copies with the last page having an “I agree with the contents of this document” section where the educators signed. I had all of the signatures by yesterday afternoon and was ready to go talk to the principal.

Yesterday she called me into the office and was disturbed. She felt that I kind of went behind her back in showing the entire faculty before even approaching her. I had planned on presenting it to her at a School Management Team (SMT) meeting; the SMT is composed of the HoD from Foundation Phase (R-3) and Intermediate Phase (4-6) and the principal. The Foundation Phase HoD said the idea had been shot down before so it would be good to get the signatures before presenting it to her. My father had always told me, “Don’t come to me with a problem unless you have a possible solution to work with”, so I figured a proposal with faculty support would make it even more convincing.

Well, she didn’t think so. She requested that I present it to the SMT, like I had already planned anyways. After about an hour discussion we all agreed that it was an excellent idea and are planning on trying the student movement in November before the end of the year and a 6-month trial run at the beginning of next year. I was kind of confused when she said we “can see which one works better”. I was thinking to myself, “You mean the proposed one that works in every school in which it is used? Or the dysfunctional one that is now in place?”. Hopefully the transition goes smoothly so that there is no doubt that this is going to work. I was very encouraged when my counterpart said to me with assertion, "It will work".

There are also two other parts I added to the proposal which will improve its functioning overall. The educators will be assigned to teach subjects that they are qualified to teach. This will mean the educator knows the material well and will do a better job of teaching it since they are more enthusiastic about the subject. This will be determined at a faculty meeting tomorrow after school and at very latest Monday afternoon.

The other change will be to switch from 9 half hour periods per day to 3 one hour and 1 hour and a half period so the students will only have at most 4 subjects of homework due a night and will only have to move 3 times a day. Also, a longer period allows for more teaching time. 10 minutes of settling down at the beginning of the period would mean every class would have 50 minutes of teaching. The other option is 40 minutes of teaching in 2 20-minute sessions which makes holding discussions after presenting notes difficult. After the subjects are assigned I will be working up a possible schedule that will be used during the November trial run. I believe there will also be many other projects that will arise from this change too.

Last night our office was broken into which is actually convenient. It showed that the office isn't as secure as everyone thought and gave me an opportunity to show the police commissioner that our school needs some serious renovation. Unfortunately, most people in South Africa watch a soap opera called "Generations" instead of CSI or Law and Order so they cleaned up the rooms before they could be examined thus contaminating the crime scene. Now, hopefully, the Department of Education will be more willing to deliver on the renovations that they promised. If not, the school will have to resort to taking them to court like all of the other area schools do. If only they would do their job then there wouldn't be so many problems.