The Students Arrive

And they’re back!  It’s move-in day for the 2019 school year.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures today, but here’s a photo of some of the students being silly another day. 

This year, I’m co-teaching Form 1 and Form 3 English with Oscar; I’m doing the grammar/pronunciation/speaking/general English, and he’s doing the literature/writing part.  We’ve worked it out where I’ll teach them three days a week and he’ll do the other two (he’s also teaching Kiswahili classes every day, as well as being the teacher in charge of sports).  In addition to teaching, I am taking on the role of librarian. 

Michela, the Short’s teenage daughter, and a few student workers have been managing the library the last couple of years and have done a good job.  However, we are trying a new system of storing all of the textbooks in the library and having students come to check them out as they need them instead of issuing them to the students for the semester.  The students do not have a good track record of taking care of books, and Mr Gerald, the academic master, had heard of other schools doing it this way and thought we could give it a try to see if we can get the books to last longer.  Also, we are expecting a container from the US with some new equipment for the school as well as about 3000 more books for the library (we have less than 500 now); it was originally supposed to have been here by now but has been delayed.  We’re now hoping for April or May; the bookworms among the students ask about it’s progress frequently.  So, between these two major changes to the library, there’s plenty of work for me to do. 

The first tasks today were stamping and inventorying (is that a word?) the first boxes of new books for Form 4 and getting started on organizing all the textbooks and rearranging the shelves to make them easily accessible.  This is more than a one-day job; apparently the teachers forgot about collecting textbooks until the last-minute last term, so everything was just tossed onto tables in the library rather haphazardly.  I’ll post some pictures once I get it looking nice, though!     

So, some new challenges, but I’m ready to get back to work.  Most of the students I taught in preform last term have returned to begin Form 1, and it was good to see them all again.  I’m looking forward to getting to know the Form 3 students better as well.  I’m hoping this will be a good year at Alpha Omega!