The Calvary (Written 2/5/07)

One day after Peyton claimed what has been hounding him for a while now, I finally got what I really needed a bit of: Help! It seems that one of the new teachers (Thilan) knows a little something about computers – hardware and software. He was originally scheduled to be a maths teacher but when one of our staff members returned he was kind of out of a job until Kevin brought him to me and said he could help me install operating systems on the new computers we just got. So for the first time since I've been here there's another person who can help me get these computers setup – Hooray, you say?! Not so fast my friend, there's a catch – he's only going to be here for two more weeks and then he's going back to university. Oh the bitter irony of it all! I get help but it's only temporary. So to see if he knew his stuff I had him install Win XP on one of the new computers so it could be the teacher computer in lab 2 (the Compaq that was there before died last year and we replaced it with an IBM – basically just waiting for IT to die as well) and he went through the whole procedure without me being around – even did a bit of troubleshooting without my guidance (the original CD-Rom on the computer was messed up so he had to replace it – he figured that out without me being around, impressive!) I was just loving the fact that work was getting done and could be done while I was busy putting out fires throughout the day. Tomorrow we'll get a copy of Win 98 to put on these new computers so they're compatible with everything else on the network (I know Win 98 is old, but so are these computers).

Today was also the day that I was taken out of my 10.1 class and placed into the newly divided Year 12c class (before now, there was one teacher with about 32 kids – not a good situation). The bad thing about the situation is that Adam (the other senior computer teacher) and I have very different teaching styles – I use the notes that have been created by prior Peace Corps computer teachers (and even though they are available to him) Adam teaches more according to the government given syllabus and fills in the holes himself. We cover pretty much the same thing, but my way has a more logical order to it. So when we split up the class and I got these students who previously had Adam as a teacher, I had to figure out where he was on the government given syllabus and found out he was quite a ways ahead of me in terms of my notes but he probably hasn't covered all the topics (and gone into as much depth) as I have. Basically, these kids are going to be starting over in my eyes and I have to rebuild them from the ground up – that seems to be the theme for year 2 so far: Rebuild!

The electricians also came today to begin placing the wires in for the fourth computer lab because right now there's only one outlet in the entire room. Once that job is done then we could conceivably start setting up computers in that room – I told you the storm was going to come fast if the Bears lost! But the best thing about being in Year 2 is that you have a lot more say in what you will and won't do – for instance, last year I was basically pushed into doing an after school class for 2 students in Year 12. Now when one of them didn't show up, it made it pretty hard to actually teach the class since 50% of the roster is gone and towards the end of the year it was getting pretty hard to convince the kids to stay – but me being me I stayed the 45 minutes after class waiting for the kids to show up. This year I pretty much told Kevin that I wasn't going to be in that situation again because it just takes a mental toll on you after a while – I don't mind teaching the kids after school, but if they're not going to take it seriously I was just wasting my time. This year Kevin has turned it more into a tutoring session where I give the kids the notes to read on the computer and I give them the same assignments I would give to my regular year 13 classes, but I don't have to stay after school. If they have questions I will but if they don't – then I don't stay. And if they don't come I don't have to worry about it – it's totally dependent on them which is great. We'll see how it goes this year. If it works, the person after me should do the same thing. If it doesn't work, hopefully they'll get some calvary help in the form of another dedicated computer teacher (another bad thing about Thilan is that he can't stay after school, so at a time when we could double the amount of work done I don't have him available – wooo is me! Wooo!)

One last thing, while he is here Thilan will also be teaching two Year 13 students (not the same 2 that are doing it after school) who want to take computers but there schedule conflicts with the regular computer classes. Suddenly, computers are in hot demand at Chanel – almost every class is overflowing with students who are anxious to be around and work with the computers. It definitely makes all the hard work worth it in the end – it's just getting to the end that's the tiring part.