“You teach about Time after chai”

The Form 1 students start the year with an English orientation course because the language of instruction for primary school is Kiswahili but secondary school is taught in English. I thought this was a well-planned thing, like a separate course and a few teachers teaching it. I was rather surprised when Emmy told me today to teach about Time and handed me the book that turns out to be the lessons forth English orientation course. So I spend the morning writing out what I will teach them (rewriting the lesson plan) then at chai break another teacher tells me he has already taught that lesson. Alright, guess I won’t teach about Time. However, the experience taught me a few things. 1) I do have to teach some of the orientation course, 2) there is a book with the lessons to cover, & 3) there is no schedule for who is teaching what or when (it’s a free-for-all).

In the end I did not teach today but am scheduled to teach Form 3 on Wednesday according to the timetable that was fixed today; I went through and edited some of it so at least my schedule is correct (correct number of periods and no conflicts).