A Long Day

This blog entry is dedicated to Tammy Nicholson (Nolly will be
pleased...), sorry for taking away your lifeline for so long :o)

Today has been a long one, I knew it would be before it started. In fact
this week so far has had that kind of feel about it. It seems that no
matter how well prepared I thought I was for this week's lessons, when
it comes to the night before and I give my plans the once-over I
invariably end up kicking myself for my stupidity in forgetting to do
some major thing needed for the next day's lesson.

On Tuesdays I normally just teach for three periods in the morning but
today some of the staff had to go to Thies for health checks (something
to do with ID cards I think) and I was expecting to teach double DT with
year 8 this afternoon. Thankfully some lessons were rearranged and I
only had them for period six but it was still a drag. After school I had
two half hour music lessons, one of which was particularly trying and
then this evening we had adult French class.

After tea I tried to crack on with the last bits for tomorrow before
French. Having satisfied myself that I was fairly ready apart from one
class I decided to evaluate some possible teaching videos on 'energy'
for the IGCSE class, five minutes into which I was disrupted by Coralie
who had come to ask if I was coming to French. I hadn't fully heard the
announcement at lunch time and therefore was unaware of the earlier than
usual start and didn't have a clue as to the location. It was good that
she came looking for me.

We watched 'Les Choristes', a French film, at the Moltons house. It's a
very good film and highly recommended although the English subtitles
distracted me, I would have preferred them in French but the disc didn't
have them. I wasn't expecting to watch the whole thing in one sitting
but we did, hence the very late night now. After the film finished I
returned to the video room to continue watching my science videos. I had
to stop at 10:15ish for fear that I would get locked in and so went to
do a bit of photocopying before coming home.

Having done my photocopying and arrived home I realised that I'd been
looking at the wrong lesson plan all along and I didn't need to copy
those pages for tomorrow's lesson. Actually I should have copied a
different book and I should also have tried and prepared three short
demonstrations on pressure in liquids and hydraulics. At this point I'm
in sore need of something to release the building tension and so I
decided to eat a piece of flapjack, only to discover that I should have
finished it last week as it's now dry and not very nice!

Thankfully I have now done all that desperately needs doing tonight
(save putting two documents on memory stick to be printed first thing
tomorrow - I write that by way of a reminder to myself) and I can relax
a little by venting my frustrations at my computer keyboard whilst
listening to music at fairly loud volume on my headphones (it's late and
Johannes has turned in, otherwise it'd be the speakers and maybe lights
out too).

Just yesterday I read a devotional thought based on Matthew 6:34. I've
found it so true so far this week that God gives us just enough
resources for our daily requirements. Often it's tempting to try to do
things in our own strength but I've seen this week just how lost I'd be
if I did. Let's hope I can put it into practice as I prepare for leading
this Sunday's service, an area where I find it all too easy to rest on
my own experience and abilities.

Now I need to sleep (after this song...)

Mid-Term Break

It's a pleasantly cool early evening as I sit here in the setting sun of
Dakar on the roof of the WEC guesthouse.

Half a term has passed but it seems like more. It's been lots of fun and
lots of changes. I feel like I've been really busy so far this term. The
new job definitely has a higher workload at the moment and it's been
taking its toll recently.

It's been great today to be able to relax here in Dakar and do very
little. We went out to the supermarket this morning, the most European
part of Senegal, a moderately sized supermarket with air conditioning
recently rebranded under the French chain 'Casino'. The rest of the day
I've been reading and using the Internet.

Work's been going fairly well recently and I'm feeling on top of things
as far as the preparation goes although I'm aware of many areas in which
I need to improve in the classroom. I had a meeting with Bob & Dee the
other day, the school coordinators, to check up on how things are going.
Bob's my teaching mentor and he came in to observe me during period two
yesterday. Rather amusingly I had booked the school video room for the
wrong day thinking that it must be Friday seeing as it as the last day
of school for the week and there was another class already in there when
we trooped off half way through the lesson to watch something.

It's just a small group of us in Dakar this time round. Adam, Jaclyn and
Tracey are here with me. Adam and Jaclyn are spending most of their time
wedding planning online and Tracey is similarly making the most of the
ADSL with hours of skype and chat to friends and family.

We're going out for some food in a minute so I should probably pack up
and get ready. I uploaded some photos last night and will be putting out
my next monthly update in the next few days: http://andrewdavies.ls26.org.uk

Hopefully I'll find more time and inspiration for blogging in the coming
weeks after the recent lull.

A Happy Planning Coincidence

This must be the first blog entry I've written in over three weeks.
Life's been very busy here. At the moment I'm working every evening from
Monday to Thursday as well as a French class and my staff fellowship
group once a week.

I've been constantly chasing my ideal lesson planning target of being a
whole week ahead of myself i.e. working on lesson plans for the
following week whilst teaching lessons prepared the previous week. It's
been tiring and often unenjoyable but this week I've found myself int he
very happy position of having all of my lessons planned for this current
week and being a substantial way into next week's planning. This is
through no merit of my own but by sheer coincidence as this week's
lesson have been mainly end-of-unit summaries/questions and tests,
requiring less preparation, and next week I have three fewer lessons to
teach due to the Friday being part of the mid-term break.

All the tests have now been sat and marked and I've subsequently
realised a few gaps in my teaching which is a little discouraging. I
have however been making very good progress time-wise and am ahead of
schedule in all the year groups so I can afford to take time later in
the term to fill in the gaps.

I've been making flapjack tonight whilst doing lesson prep. In the
process I realised my kitchen scales are completely useless when I
placed a 200g pack of butter on them only to read a value of 10g back.
It's a good job I weighed the sugar exactly when I bought it from the
school kitchen and the oats came in handily sized and weighted packs. I
had to guess the golden syrup but I've made it enough times before to
make a reasonable estimate I think. It feels strange talking about
'weight' in such an inexact and incorrect manner now that I'm a science
teacher, especially having just taught a unit on gravity to year 9.

Hopefully my planning will continue to go well and I'll be able to take
the whole weekend off work. I could do with some real rest and I'm not
down to perform any duties on Sunday. Even more than that I hope that
I'll be in a position in a week's time to be able to go away for
mid-term break without having to worry at all about the next week's
lessons. I still need to book accommodation for the weekend off; I think
I'll be going to the WEC guesthouse in Dakar as it's cheap and has ADSL.
I'm not a big fan of Dakar shopping so I'll probably just chill at the
guesthouse and enjoy ice cream and fast Internet access.