FACULTY MEETING

Usually when we arrive at the classroom, the teacher and students are awaiting our arrival. Today it was different.  The students were sitting on their benches for the most part copying the work on the board. The teacher was not in the room. As we taught our lesson the noise from the classroom next door was so loud I had to go and ask them to be quiet a couple of times. On the first visit I discovered, there was no teacher in that classroom either. There is an air space at the top of each classroom that go into the next classroom so you can easily hear the students if they are being noisy. We taught our lesson and when it was time to go to a different classroom the teacher had not returned, but we are supposed to keep to our schedule. As we entered the next the classroom, we found the teacher was not there either.  She had not returned when it was time to leave.

We have a twenty minute break at this point while the students have recess. It was at this time we found out there was not a teacher in any of the classrooms in the entire school. The teachers were all in a faculty meeting receiving training on how to be better teachers.  I like this idea!! I think all faculty meetings should be held during class time! 

The next day when we arrived, again, we found the teachers in yet another meeting.  Come to find out this is not an unusual occurrence. The children are expected to behave whether the teacher is there or not. The teacher comes in every morning and writes all the assignments on the board. The students have little filmy notebooks in which they copy the assignments filling in the answers and working the problems. At the end of class the students turn in their work and it is graded. There is very little interaction between teacher and students.  That is part of the reason we are here to help the teachers learn to engage the students in learning.

I have to say I like this idea-- Faculty Meeting in the middle of the day!!