Last week was, as they all seem to be, pretty up and down. I had some fantastically enjoyable lessons where I finally felt as if I was making a few breakthroughs with some of the more challenging children and I also had some time to really play with and talk to the children. However there were a number of incidences which tarnished the week somewhat. The first was receiving a telling off from the deputy-head for 'distracting the children from their studies'. She came into my classroom to find about 10 of us playing 'trumps' and was seriously unamused. I would understand her point if a) it hadn't been 'games and clubs' time, which is the time of the day when the children are supposed to take extra-curricular activities. However as none are provided due to lack of facilities the children spend the hour messing around in the playground and so I saw no harm in them playing a supervised game which is also educational, and b) all the teachers were in a meeting so there was no one to look out for the children or give them something constructive to do. I was pretty put-out when the deputy said that the children won't stay in their classrooms if they know that I'm around to play with them but at the same time I can also choose to see it as a compliment!
Another downer was when I approached the headmistress to ask her permission to take my class out for a day trip to visit a couple of tourist attractions here - places where the children can feed animals, learn about wildlife as well as going on a few rides, having a picnic etc. There are no lessons this week as the schools have closed while the standard 8 pupils take their KCPE's - official exams which they need to pass if they can graduate to secondary school - so I thought it would be the perfect time to take the children away for a fun, educational day. I offered to hire a coach and take care of any expenses etc but the Headmistress said no. I was so shocked - her reasons for saying no were extraordinarily petty and I've since learned that she hates anything that isn't her own idea. The irony of it is that my housemate Daniela was in a meeting with her that same day and she was complaining that there weren't the funds to take the children on school trips. I felt so flattened by this rejection as it was unnecessarily preventing the children from having a real special and fun day. Sometimes the politics here are completely beyond me and I have to ask myself just how much some of the staff really think about the children over and above themselves.
Another grim moment was witnessing a particularly unpleansant beating. All of the teachers walk around with sticks or strips of plastic which they wave threatening at the children to try and control them when they get too rowdy and while I'd seen them use them occasionaly clip children on the back of the leg or on the hand if they were getting out of control, I hadn't seen anything like what I saw on Thursday. I was walking past the classroom of a lovely teacher who has been really accommodating to me and seems perfectly 'normal', when I saw about ten children kneeling in a line with their arms raised above their heads, their shoes off, being beaten on the soles of their feet. I was frozen in horror. It really was the most sickening sight. These children were all between 10 and 11 years old and while they aren't the easiest bunch to control they are extraordinary examples of how the human spirit can endure the grimest of situations - the fact that they bother to turn up to school at all considering the conditions they've been born into means they all deserve a socking great medal as far as I'm concerned, not to be humiliated and bruised for being too noisy or not handing their homework in on time. Once I'd gotten over the initial shock I slipped into the social workers office to discuss what I'd seen and to ask if there was anything that could be done about it but when I saw a cane on the social worker's desk I gave up and walked home seething at the injustice of it all. I can't help wonder if I'm being soft - is this sort of discipline really wrong? Only a generation before me corporal punishment was commonplace in schools in England - did it do that much harm? I'm convinced it's wrong, damaging and sick but no one here seems to agree with me - beating is just what one does to slum children, it's the only way to control them apparently. Well, I'll stick with handing out hugs and giving them the attention they crave for now. It seems to be working and that's good enough for me.