Random

I haven't felt like posting much lately (or really doing much of anything) so here are some random things that I have for you from over the past couple of weeks. I have a pile of papers about a foot high that I need to enter, but haven't. Procrastination! Whoo-hoo!

The Senior 1 students were planting trees today, so Matt got the day off.

Drama club is going well, we went over Act 2 last session - the kissin' scene. It went over about as expected - lots of giggling. So, for now, it is a very heartfelt handshake. We'll have to work on that.

The expression that is popular right now is, "Oh my God!" My students have been trying to include it in every dialogue I have been having them practice. The winking has subsided - which makes me happy as it was, well, creepy.

Last week, I found myself breaking up fights - 3 fights in 1.5 hours. Two within 5 minutes. It is better if I do it as I don't really punish like the other do. Oh, if you can think of good English songs with pretty easy vocab, please post suggestions! I'm looking for everything from "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" to Pavoratti. So, please, suggest away!

I like to walk home with a little group of boys. Last week, they told me that they are afraid of their head teacher because he "boxes" them. Today, a bunch of them had to line up in front of his office to get palms slapped. At least it wasn't on the face this time. But I saw something more disturbing than the first kid hitting incident I wrote about a little while ago.

I saw one of my kids running out of an office, crying. A little later, the head teacher came running out after the kid. He went into the classroom during the eye exercises and started to hit him. Hard. It wasn't discipline. It was beating a child. It wasn't punishment. It was rage. I saw him hit the kid with a closed fist at least once. I couldn't see it all - I was trying to see what was going on through a little window on the door. But it went on for several minutes. It was rage. Full wind-up and contact. I told Matt about it to just to hash it out. A little later in the afternoon, Matt was having a conversation with our waiban and she brought up the subject of teachers hitting kids here. Coincidence? I think not. Yup, we're bugged.

Anyhow, I don't know what to do. I honestly did not think that I would find myself in this position here. I thought that there would be some cultural differences when it comes to classroom management, maybe some knuckle wrapping. But I really did not expect to be in this sort of moral battleground. Shit. I really don't know what to do. What is my place here?