Ignorance is bliss vs Turpe Nescire

It is only day 3 in my 2-year teaching contract at the school and I'm exhausted. Little did I know how tiring it would be teaching primary school kids, especially Reception, Year 1 and Year 2! It has all been quite good fun though despite the persistent network problems and lack of Internet connection at school and intermittent connection at home.

Apparently Cable and Wireless are coming out tomorrow to check my modem at home. If you're one of my four loyal readers, you will know that there are no addresses on Praslin or indeed anywhere in Seychelles, so it makes directions/addresses quite amusing. "Do you know the bend in the road before MAS supermarket, before the papaya tree's? Yes, we live down there, fourth house on the right, opposite the breadfruit tree. It has ten pairs of boxer shorts hanging up outside." That is not too far from the truth. There's a national campaign at present to get postcodes by 2014, but that would of course rely on street names. Nobody wants to take responsibility for naming roads though, not the council, the land registry or department of housing. In the end, maybe RiRi needs to send a crack team over from Google and they can do their StreetView thing and name all the streets whilst they're at it. Make sure they don't download all our WIFI data though, as my blog posts might get leaked a day or two early.

Back to the lab (classroom). I did a quiz yesterday as a starter. I've been doing it for years:

To my surprise, over half the students could not identify the first logo (NIKE). I was flabbergasted but also very relieved that globalisation still hasn't quite reached our paradisaical island. Remember, there is no McDonalds or Starbucks here! At the same time, in an English lesson, "Boatswain M" my neighbour remarked how students did not know who Beyoncé was or Didier Drogba. That is despite many students wearing Chelsea shirts. It seems that a country with few national celebrities breeds a culture lacking of big ego's and the dreams of the Praslinois children are less celebrity-orientated. Thank God. On the flip side, local gossip is quite rife, everyone knows everything about everyone. So watch out!

To further emphasise how far along we are on the development curve out here, a Seychellois entrepreneur recently launched their own version of gumtree. It's called BazarSeychelles. On there you can buy and sell anything. I was looking for a mountain bike, but low and behold underneath the Bernina sewing machine...

Yes, that's right. Someone is selling a goat. Only £42.50! It sounds like a Soap opera, remember that storyline from Neighbours in 1999, where Lou had a pet goat? Maybe it's just me.

To wrap it all up, I'll close with this story from reception class today. I've been tasked with teaching ICT to reception kids. This is tricky considering some of the 3-4year olds do not yet speak English or indeed much Kreol and most of them have not yet developed fine motor skills to operate a mouse. I feel a great deal of responsibility in teaching a child how to use a computer and I guess there's never too early an age to start. It's massively rewarding as it is draining in terms of energy levels.  I'm convinced all kids are powered on Duracell 30000 maH batteries. Shout out to dizzle bhai.

Obviously the range of skills varies widely from child to child. As I played on a game on Poisson Rouge , which is used to develop reaction time and matching skills a UFO popped up. The 4 year old boy who I was with screamed, "Aliens! Aliens! My mum told me the aliens were coming but they never came!"-He sounded a little dissapointed.... Later on the same child was asked what he wanted to be when he grows up, he replied "I'm going to be a paleontologist" with perfect diction. We then had a relatively grown-up conversation about constellations. This kid will be a superstar within the next 15 years! HOLD TIGHT

In other news, all classes have come with pens and pencils. It's a little bizarre, everyone bringing all the equipment they need to class and everyone being very eager to learn. Students wonder around the class a bit, not being mischievious, but literally to help each other out. It's a nice little community.

 

We started off doing Mondrian drawings in MS Paint with Year 8 (due to lack of software/network) and then we looked at Frank Stella. All students were then asked to do their own variation. Here is one above.

 
Attentive readers may wonder how I got the Poisson Rouge website working in school without an Internet connection. Here is your answer: WinWSD's software allows you to download an entire website, including flash and content. I then just have to run around all 24 machines in the morning with a USB stick uploading the websites by hand. We're solutions-driven out here! I've been trained by the best-Mrs H, Ms P, Shaikh Dimension, Goh-E and Dizzle Bhai (Also known as my ex-colleagues!).

Lemons and Limes

So far, I've tried to report as fairly as possible. But I realise that some of my accounts are about as balanced as the propoganda coming out of North Korea. Firstly, it is true we do have an awesome leader. I hope he doesn't go all Kim Jong Ill on us all though. Secondly, it is true there are parts of this land which are paradisiacal as Mrs. Tiana Raleo told her son. However, as you can see there are many challenges about living in Seychelles.

Firstly, I don't think it's possible to put on weight out here; that is unless you eat Creole chicken and chips everyday. Believe me, some people do! What I mean is that the selection in the supermarket is so unpredicatble, meat is pricey and the variety of veg is somewhat limited. Kind of related to this chat about products, we watched Tim Harford's talk today about increasing complexity in the modern world during an INSET session.




He stated how in a typical supermarket, there would be 100,000 products, yet in a hunter gatherer society, there were only 500. I joked to Boatswain M, that our beloved local supermarket (MAS) probably had less than 500 products. Being a hunter gatherer is fun for a while, but when you can't get basic ingrediants like lemons or limes, you do get a tad frustrated. You also become more inventive with your culinary concoctions and inevitably, you lose weight. It got to the point where I saw lemons for the first time in 8 days in our local supermarket and I literally got an adrenaline rush. Excited by the prospect of a bit of zest in my life. Silly me!

The only thing keeping us afloat is Jenny's bakery. Anyone who builds their bakery on land owned by the school is a) awesome b) going to do a LOT of business!

Keeping on the positive side, I discovered yet another wonderful classroom view to rival Professor G's this week. Ellie L (AKA "My so called sister who likes to go to the beach and butchers without inviting any other family members") has this stunning view from her classroom window:

We're also situated on the same grounds as the local church. It seems I have moved from one school with an ajoining church to another. This one is Roman Catholic (I think) as 90% of the Church's on the island are Roman Catholic. Based on this, I wonder if my long-time mentor/mother Mrs H could get a job out here? Or just come here on "school business".

It's hard to believe you're in a work environment with views like these surrounding the school, but when your Windows Server has been hacked and there's no Internet access in school. You kind of feel the pressure, it also means I'll be coming into school on Saturday to help our technician out with all the little jobs that he has no time to do. Alongside that, like all schools we have an INSET program and lessons to plan. Some people doubt we actually do much work out here, so here's more proof.

For those teachers that drink coffee, i.e. every teacher with QTS, you'll be pretty shocked by the price of coffee out here:

That's a medium size jar and it translates as £10.50! Moral of the story, get rich or drink tea!

Working in an international school does have its pro's. Practically anyone of influence on the island is on the board of governors or as I like to refer to as being "on board", given the Captain/ship metaphor. We get frequent offers, such as this "optional TGI Friday's pool party at La Reserve hotel". Happy hours from 6pm-8pm.

 

"OPTIONAL" I hear you say? Even on this slightly overcast day like today, I think it would be rude not to represent the expatriates to the fullest. Unlike HRH Prince Harry of Wales, there probably won't be any strip billiards or indeed any billiards involved. There is however a swim-up bar. As designated driver, I'll be swimming up for my Mango and Orange juice then! It might just be me, as I only learnt how to swim 3 months ago-but I've not yet figured out how you swim back with your drinks. I'll report back after le weekend.


Posts will be less regular due to a) unpopular demand b) workload!