Getting Back into the Swing of Things

Well, alackaday, as Kerouac would say. The earth has gone a little further around the sun, and Christmas break has come and gone. Though it’s only been a week since I’ve been back in Guyana, I miss everyone at home very much already.

This last term was probably the toughest four months I have ever experienced. The first three weeks of class were a circus—the school did not know I was coming until the day before I arrived; I had no teaching schedule and nothing to do but sit most of the time. On a couple of occasions, I taught lessons with no more than forty-five minutes of warning to prepare. In one instance, I showed up ready to teach a class only to find out Caroline had also been assigned to teach it. When the dust had finally settled at around midterm, I had been given 367 students between the ages of 12 and 16 to teach at least one of five topics. The topics I now teach are as follows: 4th form human and social biology, 3rd and 4th form biology, 3rd form chemistry, and 2nd form integrated science. Depending on the class, I see the students for up to three 35 minute periods per week. With as many as fifteen different topics on the students’ timetables, I feel lucky I’m given any time at all.

In the Guyanese school system, the students are divided into classes of about forty. Each class is given a number, a letter, and a classroom. The number is the level of the class and, for the first three years of secondary school, the letter is arbitrarily assigned. At this stage, all of the students take the same classes. When the students reach their fourth year of secondary school, they are split off into “streams” according to what their job aspirations are. The letter assigned to their class is the first letter of the name of their stream. At Berbice High School, the streams the students choose from are agriculture, arts, business, general, science, and technical. At this point, their lessons become more specialized to their streams.

On top of my teaching duties, I have also been made a form teacher, which is basically a homeroom teacher. The class I have been assigned is 5T, which is to say, the fifth form technical students. My general duties are to take attendance every morning and afternoon, give announcements, keep the students’ records updated, and make sure they keep their classroom clean. 5T is generally a good group of kids, though sometimes I swear they are trying to give me gray hairs at the age of 23.

After a rocky beginning last term, I expected to start this year off feeling energized and ready for anything. Unfortunately, the past week has gone by more slowly than I expected. Shortly before I left the US, I learned that due to personal reasons Moses had to return home for the remainder of the year, leaving Caroline and me with a vacancy in New Amsterdam. Late Wednesday night and into Thursday morning, she and I were attacked by an unexpected case of food poisoning. We were forced by our stomachs to stay totally bedridden for the rest of the day. It was the first time either of us had been sick since we came to the country.

Still, the setbacks have only been minor. Things will get better once I get back into my routine. Despite my love of snow, I also find it heartening that at the beginning of January I do not have to wake up before light to scrape a thick layer of ice off my windshield before creeping cautiously off to work. Things in Guyana aren’t so bad after all.