Category: my musings

Today I wanted to write about what I hate most about teaching. On second thoughts though, I decided it would be easier to say what I don’t hate about teaching. Since I am on the international circuit I will not hesitate much before saying I don’t mind the pay and the holidays. That’s it. Everything else I hate. To a greater or lesser degree, but the despise is there. But since I want a vent, I will write about what I really hate about teaching in a school.

My personality is not exactly cut out to work with general public as stupidity and self-centredness are two other things I hate with a passion. So, I can say that I was asking for trouble when I decided to take the teaching path as my career of choice. I did not always hate teaching but as I am growing older I realize more and more what a completely fraudulent and fucked up system education is. That though deserves a separate discussion. Here is what I hate absolutely the most about being “an educator”:

Giving up over half of my personality the minute I walk into school and three quarters of the remainder the minute I step into a class:

I cannot say this, I cannot say that;

I must make sure of this, that, and the other,

and by the way “Miss, have you marked our tests that we wrote yesterday”?

Not only do I have to control myself not to call the little brats what they deserve, I also have to pretend I care for the little turds. And they are not so little: 13+ is a big turd, not a small one. And yet they seem completely out of their element every time we start a class. It seems like their hard drives are wiped out completely as they go to sleep and every new day is a totally new challenge. No, I am not working with special needs students, at least not officially. Every time I see the same class, it is the same ordeal of putting things in order before we start:

They forget this and that;

misplaced a book,

left behind a pen,

their i-pad is at service,

their brain on the frying pan…

“OH, we do have a test today?”

“But Miss, you did not put it on My.homework!”

“My calendar got reset!” “I thought it was going to be next week…”

Through all this I must remain calm! I must look like I am not phased out, annoyed and completely at the end of my tether. I am supposed to sail through my lesson and make sure the students meet their learning objectives, place their journal entries online, that I do not set homework on the wrong night (yes, we have homework schedules that do not overlap with teaching schedules), that I am available for any remedial sessions for some of the dummies who are too stupid to find answers on the internet without help, because to them internet is  for entertainment only.

I want to scream! I want to shout! I want to bury them under a ton of expletives! I want to fucking shake them! Physically! I want to leave the classroom and slam the door behind me. I want to play a primadonna sitting in my chair pouting as I just got insulted by a mere sight of their stupid faces! But no; I have to stand there with a smile on my face greeting them in a friendly manner asking how they are. What an utter pile of bollocks!

I have to be ever so careful with particularly some of them as

a) they might be children of my colleagues or, worse still, administrators or

b) they might be children of some influential figure in the local community!

So I have to pretend they are all important and special to me, and that whenever they struggle with anything whatsoever I am there for them. No human stomach is strong enough for this bullshit! I think that physical discomfort of what this dissonance is doing to me is clearly visible on my face. The only way for me not to puke is to mutter under my nose some phrases generally considered very rude and I carry on with my day.

The question is how does a suppression of one’s feelings like this countless times a day a few weeks in a row affect your personality and sanity? Is the payday at the end of the month going to alleviate the symptoms of the steady decline of your mental health? How much is enough and at which point is one excused for breaking their contract?

Giving up your personality in the class is bad enough but that is not all there is to it. There are also the teacher-parent interactions and, maybe most importantly, your interactions with your supervisors. You have to make sure you are always polite and positive, best if you smile most of the time. Negativity is Satan. Any hint of negativity and you will be slapped on your wrists. Any criticism of anything coming from above is a huge no-no. I have observed this much so far but somehow I just have difficulties in fully absorbing this knowledge. Every time I see a stupid initiative I just cannot keep my mouth shut. Or if I do, my face shows exactly what I think (in expletives) anyway. Turns out I have a learning disability after all!

The school is getting a new headmaster next year. We just met him. He gave a speech.  He tried to be funny, succinct and to the point. He failed on all three counts, needless to say… I didn’t like it. Too much jargon. Too shiny. Too optimistic. Too positive. My stomach started doing the familiar thing. My face drooped. Had to get out at the first opportunity. Hate old heads. Hate new heads. Hate school. Hate students. Too much control of heads over teachers. Too much control of teachers over students. Too much control of parents over teachers. Too much control of kids over parents. Vicious circle. How do I get out?

My personality is not what it used to be; yet some say it is only a natural course of things for this to happen. But what if I do not like what I have become? There is no magic trick, or another job I could do to undo the damage. I am contemplating quitting teaching for good. I started my research. I started as any modern person would: google it! So I find a promising phrase: 20 alternatives to teaching! Thinking: great! There must be something in there for me!

Here is the brief list of new career paths (the website endorsing this list is called reallygoodstuff.com) when you want out of schools:

Training companies,

Testing companies,

Sales reps

Publishing companies

Tutoring

Education program director

Freelance editor

Content creator (???)

Cyber School teacher

Real Estate Agent

Teacher at a Children’s Hospital or Prison (no, I did not make it up)

Teach at the college level

Study groups (?)

Kids’ classes

Activity directors

Teach Adults English

Academic Advisors

Specialised Dyslexia Tutor and/or Advocate (!!!)

Party planning for kids or adults

Nanny (!!!???)

So, folks, you see, have faith! Plenty of opportunities are out there waiting for you! If you want out of teaching because you are burnt out you can:

a) teach,

b) teach some more,

c) make someone learn,

d) entertain someone,

e) teach (did I mention it before?) or

f) go and sell some shit to unassuming customers! Go do it!

That is fucking unreal that people put these ‘guides’ out there in good will and get paid for it. Yes, after a long and tiring career as a teacher all I want is to be a fucking nanny! Why did I not think about it before? Because I was a fucking moron, but now I know better, thank you, reallygoodstuff! My career of choice 2.0: Nanny! Or even better 2.1: Prison Teacher! That will do it!!!

Or better still a dyslexia advocate! During all these years we as teachers were so inept at teaching spelling that now it is time to debunk the myth that you need to spell correctly to be considered educated. We got it all wrong, Sorry, poor sausages!!! Sorry for all the misspelt word red pen underlining tortures! We take it all back! How about EVERY teacher becomes a dyslexia advocate? How about that? Or, ermmmm, too late now? We are all, unbeknownst to ourselves, dyslexia advocates already. Only without the pay as well…

After such a fruitful research, I said enough and went to bed. Got up in a slightly better mood but still contemplating my next move.

Quite frankly being here feels like prison. School is mental prison and the country itself is more of a physical prison. Ok, some may say it is my own doing and many would jump at the opportunity of exploring a country like this, but: 1. It is an oven outside. Literally. 2. No places to walk, very dirty and empty huge spaces. 3. Intimidating Muslim men. That puts me off enough.

I keep being torn between the personal freedom and the financial freedom. We all know how even though money is not a source of happiness, it certainly helps in achieving the state. But can the state of being miserable for most of the year be compensated by whatever the money can provide after? This is my dilemma and I know only I can answer it truthfully, and I know the answer already and I am scared of it! If I quit this job, of rather if I leave suddenly, that is another bridge burnt. I do not like burnt bridges. But I also do not like my skull burning inside…

It is burning outside…

 

 

Life here has sort of settled down, and even though work can be quite hectic and discouraging at times, my daily routine is rather boring. I do not have much to report other than nearly colliding with a huge SUV in a parking lot (not my fault) and crashing a tuk-tuk (entirely my fault) in the space of two days. My days in the afternoons are rather boring and I spend a lot of time investigating life however one wants to define it. Below are latest of my contemplations, reminiscences and general ruminations…

My gran is a very simple and humble person now in her eighties. She received only basic education in a German school during WWII and her jobs in life were simple and many required physical work. She led a simple and quiet life mainly caring for her family. Her subversive characteristics cannot be undermined though. When she was young lent was something that everybody observed. During that time no meat was consumed and no animal derived products were used. They were all sored in pantries and as she recalls the frying pan was hung on a hook and not used for a few weeks. This is how religion was important to people at that time. But my gran was rather a curious person. She sneaked in to the pantry just before Good Friday and got herself a large chunk of something similar to Scottish Haggis, ate it and waited for God’s Wrath! As you can imagine the god did not budge a finger… She sometimes tells us the story and always laughs at it…

I guess many of us like to put to test the theories we are taught. When I was at school, in my early biology classes, we were still taught that the taste buds on our tongue were arranged in a certain fashion and a particular part of the tongue was responsible for particular flavours. It was one of few facts I remembered from school and was eager to experiment especially that sometimes I had to take medicine that was rather bitter and I hated the taste. So I thought that if I placed it strategically on my tongue so the bitterness would not be detected and swallowed quickly I would cheat the tongue and would not taste the bitterness. How disappointing it was to always fail this! Having tried many times, I did have the fleeting thought that the books were wrong. I kept repeating the experiment with different tastes but the outcome was always disappointing. Somehow though I always managed to persuade myself that I was doing it wrong. I could not question the written word of the books, could I? I did not even share these findings with anyone as I assumed I would be laughed at. After a while I gave it up and forgot all about it until a few years later when I stumbled across some write up somewhere that this theory of structured taste buds was no longer valid! See, a curious kid could prove a theory wrong but because authority has been so much hammered into our heads we would not dare questioning the written word. Now I wonder if any of my teachers had tried this simple test at all, or did they just take it for granted and regurgitated the fossilized rubbish as science? Or did some of them have their doubts but for the sake of their own safety in the job they decided to stop any independent investigations…

I have recently come across ideas that contradict everything that we learn at schools. I cannot say I buy it all but they seem to have some valid points. Now, I am talking about contradicting the VERY fundaments of our knowledge we learn at schools. Simple experiments are carried out and videos posted online and they seem to question all we know. Now, try to imagine that: a few people just like me in my younger age play around and get results significantly different from what is generally thought to be correct. They do it repeatedly! Repeatedly they get consistent results. As they post their findings, the majority is just laughing at them calling them names. I was too scared to even talk about my findings about the taste buds, now the technology makes it possible to share your findings more or less anonymously but the ridicule is still there. Why is it so hard for people to step out of the comfort zone and see for themselves? Majority often say that the minority is so stupid they get everything wrong because science has proven this or that and it is a fact. Yet, the majority is often too lazy to get the real grip on basics of science. Well, if there is a simple experiment to confirm what we question and if it repeatedly confirms that we have solid grounds for doubts, shouldn’t this be investigated seriously rather than just simply mocked?

In year 9 we are discussing the human body now and the respiratory and circulatory systems. The students get amazed when they hear that the lung surface is as large as that of a tennis court, or that our blood vessels have the total length so large that they could go around the earth 2.5 times. I thought it would be a fun thing to make these calculations to see it ourselves. I myself have always taken them for granted so I thought it would be fun to go through the process. When I started my google search to find it, all I got was the numbers simply repeated and taken for granted. Maybe I did the search wrong (silly me again!)? Whenever something more promising regarding the calculating process popped up, before it even introduced the topic, I was asked for the subscription payment. I gave up the whole idea quite frustrated and angry. We repeat these numbers in good will, but they are only empty words if there is no evidence to go with it. I am not saying these numbers are wrong but I simply ask to be shown the calculation method. I might try to find it again when calm down…

Another thing getting me angry is the branding. Many international schools are proud to be Apple schools. This means that all staff and students have Apple devices for their education purposes. The younger ones usually are given ipads, the older one the airbooks. What a clever marketing strategy!

Everybody knows that Apple interface is completely different from any other system. Everybody knows that the habits you develop in your formative years are the hardest to eradicate. So, from a very early age you get used to the Apple way of doing things, you reinforce it daily until you cannot be bothered to go to any other system. You have been sold this system for life! And you are proud to be an Apple user! Well done!

This marketing from birth process has been at work for about a decade now and the results are already visible. The young pupils just love the distraction of ipads. Handwriting is still being taught but in a much lesser capacity. It is worth noting that Ipads rely mainly on screentouching and are not great for typing. Trying to learn to type comes in later when they leave primary, but by then their habits are already formed. I watch many students in secondary schools holding their pens in some ridiculous way that impedes their handwriting. Nobody seems to care about it. Ok, if their ability to hold a pen is superceded by the ability to touchtype then at least they have some skill. But they cannot touchtype properly either! Handwriting is painful for them (physically) so external exams are a horrific prospect! I suspect that writing a few pages of text in English exams in a single stretch of time is probably the first time they have to do this for many of them.

We are starting to steer away from paper textbooks in schools too. It all seems to go online: resources are posted online on school servers or education websites are used directly. Isn’t it a bit suspicious that we are all getting to use all these resources for free? Who is being so kind to us to let use their servers free of charge? Not long in the future I predict all good/useable information will be only accessible online through paid subscription. One day, sooner rather than later, it will all be unavailable unless you pay first.

Only recently have I discovered that there is an agnostic part of the Intelligent Design (ID) movement. I always thought (wrongly) that ID equaled creationism. It turns out than more and more people question both creationism as seen by major religions and evolution. However, the general perception of majority who do not research the field is that it is either god as the creator, or evolution at play when it comes to life origins.

In my education I was exposed to both views and neither made much sense to me. Organised religion repulsed me from the very beginning even though I could not really explain why. When I think of it now, the things I oppose most strongly to are the fear it instigates in people and the idea that you come to this world as a sinner.

Evolution is also a concept I cannot buy. One of the major problems I have with it is sexual reproduction. Let’s assume that macroevolution does happen and results in biodiversity. Sexual reproduction requires two organisms of the same genetic make-up meeting at the same time at the same place. Now, can you imagine how immensely unlikely it is? For the first sexual act ever in the distant history, it means that two separate organisms had to undergo very complex evolution process in the same direction to achieve 100% species compatibility of a male with a female on the way developing fully working opposite sex organs so that they could meet completely by chance and to be successful at producing offspring. But this is not the end of it for we are taught incestuous breeding limits the gene pool creating all sorts of genetic deficiencies in the resulting progeny. How come then that the two initial organisms are able to achieve the genetic variety we see now and that even now with all the variety present close cousins are discouraged from procreating. How is this all logical? But it is never brought up when discussing the subject. Very few questions are asked and it is presented as scientifically sound theory and nobody bothers with the ‘theory’ part of it.

I am not saying I know it all; all I am saying is that I am utterly confused.I suppose this confusion might be generated on purpose for the ‘wiser’ to say that you were not paying attention and that the simplest facts escape you.

I am overly not mathematically gifted, but as long as the numbers stay relatively real I cope ok. However, when the numbers become too large I get lost and I lose interest no longer wanting to investigate anything. The same goes for numbers too small: I just get confused and things stop making sense.

I would say the same is true about any subject: if you convolute any topic badly enough people will become disinterested and will take your word (as the teacher) for anything without any further verification.

Also, based on my personal experience, unless you are really interested in a topic no matter how much a teacher will push you to learn something you will not retain the information. So I find it laughable when the school managers try to push for the crosscurricular links and the interdepartmental planning making teachers work much harder than the students at making learning happen. If students are not devoted to a topic, the teachers can bend backwards but will not achieve results. But we live in a society where blame must be put on someone for unfulfilled goals. It just so happens that teachers have been in schools for so long that they have lost their backbones. It happened because schools are not interested in education but mainly in crowd control.

As I first arrived here and saw my apartment I did not like it very much for a variety of reasons. Now, I have come to appreciate the space and its general location. There are a few things that are minor annoyances but nothing major to report. Having seen a few other places where my colleagues live I decided this is the best possible apartment I could get. I have an unobstructed view of the outside with no other buildings facing me directly; the major balcony is rather spacious and I have bought a mat that can lie down on to soak up some sun from moderate shade. Most of all though I like the fact I can observe the locals in their households and they can do nothing about me taking pictures often being unnoticed from the comfort of my home.

I often look at the life unfolding in the four households at the ground level. There are no excitements in general and people just go about their daily business. I cannot put a number on how many children there are in each family but there are a fair few and generally they all get along. The other day I saw a boy of about 10 years old who was washing clothes in a metal basin. I marveled at the sight as he seemed to be enjoying it, or at least there was no resistance on his part to carry out the chore. I am not sure these households have any tap water and even if they do washing machines are a luxury that few of them dare to dream about. Most commonly laundry is done in wide, shallow, metal basins. I have seen men do it as their business. My young neighbour spent some time doing the laundry and then disappeared somewhere. He made me think about teenage issues that we are so often exposed to back home and that are a source of many domestic battles.

During my first week at school here we were shown a video trying to sensitise us to the needs of the youths. It was a very loud and rather patronizing clip from some American show where parents anticipated their child 13^th birthday: the day when they officially become teenagers. As midnight struck the child went through a drastic metamorphosis from being a sweet little person to a nasty monster. What followed was an animation (no presentation is ever complete without an animation) of changes in a teenage brain. Apparently the hemispheres cannot decide which one takes over and they constantly battle and as a result we get the atrocious adolescent behavior.

When I was much younger I remember my grandparents reminiscing about their childhood. They were all about 10 when the war broke out; our area was not badly affected but everybody was poor. One of my grandfathers always talked about how they had to go find work to help feed the family. My gran was taken to her distant family who were farmers to work the fields all day long just to be fed. Did they have conflicted hemispheres? Did they rebel against their parents? I don’t think this concept ever entered their apparently batting with itself mind. Or if it did it would have been ousted by cane or belting before it could settle. No evolution scientist in their right mind would say that the change between then and now is due to evolution at play; the time is just too short. What is it down to then?

I am a keen observer, and now living in Africa and I often think about tribal societies living here. They also have people of all ages, including teenagers and I wonder if many of them go against their parents’ or their elders’ advice? My suspicion is that maybe having a conflicted teenage brain is only reserved for youths in developed countries where they are allowed to act the way they do as soon as they reach puberty.

I fear that research can be doctored to prove any point, including contradictory ones, by looking at the same statistics. What would be the agenda behind promoting ugly adolescent behaviour? What would be the agenda behind stopping to teach facts? Or am I simply being paranoid?

Another pet peeve of mine is the child protection section in any modern school. All sorts of policies are implemented all in the name of child safety. What is it that makes teachers silently agree to the scrutiny of the police checks and other tools apparently to help weed the garden? Since when has the profession been infested with pedophiles? Why is it that the schools assume the role of the policeman and tell the parents what to do and what not to do. This is particularly pertinent to schools accredited by international organisations. As a parent of a child in such a school you not have the right to choose what punishment to use for your own child! If corporal punishment evidence surfaces you will be reported to the police or threatened with the child’s expulsion. And why is it that we, the people from the Western (obviously uber or even superuber) developed countries are usurping the right to know everything best? What gives us the right to go and meddle with other peoples’ ways of bringing up their young generation? Many international school counselors will say: in this culture child abuse happens frequently but the issues are swept under the carpet so we must be supervigilant to spare the children the harassment and violent treatment. The whole list of suspicious things to look out for will follow. If this is their country and their culture why is it our role to interfere with this? I do not condone maltreating any creature, children included, but corporal punishment was applied to me when I was younger and while it hurt I do not think it left any scars on my psyche. Well, who I am to judge but I guess you catch my drift…

What makes our egos so inflated that we feel it is our responsibility to go to other places and tell people how to live? I find this particularly unsettling in the current climate of all the changes happening back in Europe. Do we really have our life sorted? How can we say with a clear conscience that our way of life is the one to promote when we have crime rates on the rise, employment opportunities in decline and housing prices skyrocketing leaving many families in torment?

I met a person here who sympathises for and tries to help the IDPs. So I ask who are IDPs? Internally Displaced People. In other words: migrants. Economic migrants. So many politically correct terms for people going to other places looking for a better future. But us here: aren’t we Displaced People as well? And what gives us the right to go and say: “Here, let me help you coz I think you need my help. Let me buy you a football and a pair of sneakers”. After all are we not here just because our job brought us here? OK, our earnings are so disproportionate to the local wages there is virtually no scale to compare them but why is it that we look down on others thinking that a little handout will serve them? Are we not doing this to silence our guilty conscience? Am I being selfish not sharing what I have with the more needy? The ancient tribes have survived here much longer than we have. We have developed much faster than them, but maybe what we are doing is our own destruction? Maybe it is them who hold the secret to survival and we are doing them a huge disservice by trying to make them imitate our ways?

They leave us alone, why can’t we let them be?

I keep thinking about the mother dove on my balcony as she keeps coming here quite often. She has been temporarily released from her duty of being a mother. Maybe it is a rest she needs and some creature did her a favour by taking her young away. I could have left food for her on the balcony but that would be interfering with the nature. In fact, I destroyed the nest and I rearranged the stuff on my balcony. I want her to change her nesting spot. This one is just not safe. Am I doing it for her good or do I protect myself from another unpleasant experience? I myself am interfering with the nature meanwhile trying to persuade others not to. Am I a hypocrite?

Would you ever consider employing a visually challenged person to work as a cashier in a busy supermarket? Well, some may argue it is not exactly the case but consider this: a Muslim woman, fully covered, long dress, headscarf covering her whole head and in the place where normally you have the opening for the eyes she has a black net sewn in so absolutely nothing of her body is exposed. She is working all day long looking at a checkout monitor and handling money looking through something that is rather opaque! Now that for me is a joke.

I am told covering women’s face serves a modesty purpose. But then why would any women above a certain age (I don’t want to arbitrarily assign a number here) still cover their faces?

Another joke: all you see is the statuesque female bodies all around you so you get the idea that private things remain private. However, when you go to a local market for your daily supplies, the only shop assistants are males! So, if you need a pair of knickers, tights or a bra you need to speak to a male! How does this make sense is beyond me. I consider myself a fairly liberated person but I do not want to buy my underwear from a man! And a Muslim man even less so!

At the stalls you see underwear piled up high and you also see bikinis, or stuff made with lace so this whole modesty is just a front. I have to say I do not mind not being exposed to girls’ midriffs or their cracks due to low sitting pants. however, this level of covering your body is too much to take especially in the oppressive heat of a desert climate.

In the Science office when another class was due a colleague said to me: “I Really don’t feel like covering the reproduction topic with my year 13s…” When I questioned him a little he said he just wasn’t ready for their inquisitiveness which he worried would be similar to that of last year when he was covering sexually transmitted diseases. He said that last year after very detailed questions pertaining to how STDs are transmitted he came out of that class with quite a vivid image of their sexual experiences and they are in Y13 in an Islamic country!

To be fair every school I have been at had stories about sexual escapades of the students either at school or on school activities, so I am not surprised that it happens. Rumour has it that here it also happens even though the general public is somehow naively led to  perceive the Islamic countries as ones where this would not be occurring. Another example of being fooled by the image created by superficial media reports…

At the end of my second week, and even in my first week people were asking me how I am liking it here. There has not been much chance for me to explore the place at all. I have a car, but I am a lousy driver, and driving here can be unnerving. Plus the signage is nearly non-existent and maps out of date. Google maps is probably only available on VPN but it is hard to get your data to work on the phone. The roads are dirt tracks most of the time. It is a little too hot for leisurely walks and I am slightly intimidated here.

You can not really see that many people on the streets, but when you do see them they are either women walking with a purpose or groups of men loitering underneath low trees. The kids can be seen playing football barefoot in dusty, unused empty spaces. The women here quite often wear colourful clothes, many choose saris with wild, African pattern giving the place its unique flair. It is not just the dark tones of typical Islamic hijabs, but more of African heritage is seen in their clothes. They often carry heavy loads on their heads as if gliding along the dusty paths. The men either don their whitish robes and scullcaps or just wear typical western clothes. You often see them in groups just sitting under trees or walking aimlessly.

The one big difference between living in China and here is the wildlife and domestic animals. In China you would see dogs. Loads of them. Usually tiny ones. There is a law there that in cities dogs larger than a certain height cannot be registered. Some breeds are completely banned because they are seen as dangerous. So the Chinese usually have what I call little anklefuckers. U see them wearing clothes. Wearing shoes. Straight out of grooming salons with their manes and tails dyed. Utter canine abominations. You could see cats sometimes. Sneaking around and scampering away when spotted. Few birds. Once I saw a hedgehog! It was quite a sight so I just watched the poor creature patter away. Some mosquitoes, but not many because all greenery is sprayed with DDT. No moths, few butterflies. That was it.

Here the whole area, as barren and arid as it is, is teeming with life! I had the chicks on my own balcony. Then there are the donkeys pulling carts everywhere. One mud brick household downstairs from me has one so I see and hear it every day and every night. In another household there are goats and chickens. I see them from my windows. Just outside our perimeter wall there is a whole litter of kittens playing around. I have a little wall lizard in one of the rooms. Birds chirp all the time and there are many species of many sizes. So you do not see a lot of foliage but there is life all around you. Only now do I realise how much I like having animals around just to look at them. With the exception of flies! The flies here are something else. It seems the sole purpose of their existence is purely to annoy you. This is true of all the flies all over the world, but the ones here are particularly persistent. They are rather small and partly lethargic but with enough wits about them to almost always escape the swatter.

A big day for me on Saturday! After Friday laziness and lethargy I arranged for a friend to go with me to the market again. This seems to be the only outlet of activity for a person like me here. There are only two small lanes with stuff for tourists who want to buy some souvenirs and the selection is extremely limited. The other parts of the market offer daily necessities mainly made in China. There is also a jewellers’ section. Shops full of gold and silver stands seem to be congregated on the outskirts of the market. You see bench jewelers stationed outside bigger shops at a little portable counter with their torches mending gold and making silver pieces.
One area has loads of men sewing bedding and clothing; they are all hunched over their machines but always lift their heads when I appear. There are not many tourists in this section and they are all curious.

Generally you do not see any women working here. I have seen very few exceptions. The merchandise is very limited and all shops sell the same stuff. The thing I am interested in are the coupons of fabric; the women wrap it around their bodies. Some of the patterns are fabulously wild and I have bought some on the first occasion I had. This is what I like about Sudanese culture: the women are wrapped up head to toe but there is a certain charm about it and the patterns are incredibly vivacious and add a real character to the place.
People re generally very nice and curious about visitors. I am a bit shy though about taking pictures and socializing. Barrier number one is the language; I really feel incapacitated, as their English is rather limited at the local stalls. Maybe I should try Chinese? As I walk by with my Asian friend some vendors shout “Mi Hao” at us. I am completely perplexed thinking: how do they know I speak Chinese? My friend explains it quickly saying it was addressed at her. We laugh. So yes, maybe trying Chinese would get me somewhere?
The place is full of Chinese; they have built a few hotels and lots of other buildings. You see them at the market and in shops. There is no escape…
Another thing to marvel at is the taxi stand. It is a huge dust field with haphazard lines of cars in a bright canary colour. Most of them remember three regimes past I reckon. Some have bullet holes through, some have just marks of a hundred collisions dating back to just after when the car was manufactured. They must have been all painted recently and it is a funny sight. I always laugh seeing one get past me. You have them just as people carriages or for cargo as well. Incredibly, they are in two separate lines.
You also see families or friends congregating in shaded areas, always in a circle and usually sharing some food. It all looks unbelievably scruffy but everybody seems rather happy.
There is a lot of activity at the local part of the market but their mentality is miles apart from ours. Often the clothes on offer are stained or faded and usually all they have is displayed on the racks. They do not seem to have much stock. Some of the robes are so incredibly tattered that in my mind there is really no point in hanging them to attract anyone. Apparently, the stains can be washed and nobody really cares much for quality.
There are tea ladies at corners or in narrow corridors, making it hard to pass. They offer hot tea and coffee in local flavor. They seem to be rather popular. The stands are mobile, like everything here, and they consist of a base with a large tray on it holding the kettle, jars with spices and little glasses. Next to it there are two or three buckets: one for coffee grounds or tealeaves, and one or two for rinsing the glasses. It is all rather grim and I can only imagine the colonies of bacteria germinating in these moist and warm reservoirs. One glance puts me off completely. But the locals do not mind and the ladies seem to have quite a bit of business. You see quite a few people sitting on little plastic or wire stools sipping their freshly made hot beverages. I sometimes envy their their ignorance and simple way of life.
That said, when a driver took me to one of the markets he felt he had to come with me to ensure my safety. At a certain point he asked if I was hungry and I was so, he found a little fast food place serving a Sudanese burger equivalent. With the burger in hand I was looking around the place. The walls were blackened from the ubiquitous dust, the seats were plastic chairs misshapen, beaten and discoloured, the drinks fridges were ancient and filthy and the people there were just having their food. Many of them women. The most orthodox one had to lift her face cover for every bite so I could get an idea what she looked like.
I wondered how later on I had to pay in physical discomfort for this culinary folly. Astonishingly, nothing was wrong with my stomach that day!

It was a big day as I decided to drive to the market myself. I had my friend for moral support. I knew Saturday would be busy and the market area would really be rather mad. I knew the way roughly but around the market many street are only one way so it took us a bit to get to the right place but it was not too complicated. Getting out was easier geographically but there was much more traffic in the afternoon. The roads have all sorts of potholes, unexpected humps, and other obstacles of anthropogenic origin. Additionally, the drivers do not use their indicators and they seem unfamiliar with basic rules of traffic. The craziness is compounded by the tuk-tuk drivers, who do not seem to have any sense of cooperation with other users of the roads. Add to this the donkey carts ofren driven by emaciated 12-year olds and you are sort of getting the picture of what driving through Khartoum is really like. Oh, and the pedestrians do not make it easier either. When they decide to cross, that is when you have to watch out for them. Once they are on the road they seem to believe they have the full right of way even though they are un-vehicled! I have to confess: I jaywalk. A lot. But when I do this I plan it carefully. I do this only where it is really necessary and if there are any cars in my field of vision, I simply run across to the other side. Here nobody is in a hurry. People are slowly shuffling down the road right in the middle of busy traffic. Infuriating. Frustrating. Silly.

Amazingly though, with all these difficulties, I made it home safe! This was like a baptism, the kind of sink or swim kind of initiation. I do not want to feel overly victorious as this would build my confidence to ignorant levels that might only end up in a sorry situation for me. Driving here requires constant undivided attention, which was confirmed only a few days later when I had to cover one of my Sudanese colleague’s classes as when he was driving to school in the morning he crashed his car and totally wrecked it…

Friday very early morning I woke up and walked up to the window. It was still dark and I could see only some building silhouettes thanks to the weak lights next to them. The city looked a little different; more misty. But I knew mist here was not an option, at least not in January. I opened the balcony door; I did it every morning to air the apartment. The wind was much stronger than usual. When it got lighter I realized it must have been the harmattan: the desert storm. It was not something apocalyptic like I imagined, having read some descriptions in books, but there was something eerie about it. Usually the city is very sunny but this morning it was rather dull and the landscape was rather depressing as the sandy coloured buildings looked more tattered and glum. It reminded me of Beijing where on a polluted day everything looked uniformly grey. But Beijing was grey-grey; here it was yellow-grey. You could see the ball of sun trying to break through the thick carpet of dust, and around noon it was half-successful. I decided to spend the day at home. It was Friday anyway, so around noon things go completely dead, I am told, as everyone prays. Apparently business resumes after the religious rituals but after 3 weeks of being at work or on scheduled social events I thought I needed a day just to myself.

I was reading A Secret History by Theroux. I usually do not read novels, but after his Dark Star Safari I decided to give it a go. He goes on about his time as an altar boy and his vivid descriptions brought on my reminiscences of my church experiences. I gave up church just after the first communion. The first communion in my country was a big thing then and it is probably even bigger now. Don’t forget it was still the ‘regime time’. We did not have religion classes at school. We had to go to the nearby church. In my country churches are aplenty. You never have to walk far to find one. At that time all kids my age enrolled in religion classes and nobody questioned anything. The authorities did not mind and everybody who wanted to could go to church. First communion was a big deal for the kids as we were all looking forward to the gifts. Girls wanted to show off their dresses, guys were anxious to get their first bikes. It was a farce then, it is still now.

Before the big ceremony, there was the preparation period including church sessions and mock confessions. Life was a little different then in the aspect of shopping. While it is true that shops were not full of merchandise everybody somehow got whatever they needed even for big occasions.

The church in our parish was being built; the plans were grand and the work moved on slowly. An interim building was constructed so that the faithful had a place to worship. It was a barrack-like structure: low, narrow, long and dark inside. A hideous place to go worship the lord; but maybe the darkness was purposeful so that the crowds gathered repented more?

After school one day, very close to the big day, we had our mock confessions. I totally had forgotten about it and so did not have my little book with me. It was a book were class participation was noted and other things signed with the priest’s signature or his stamp. Usually it was not a big problem if one forgot it for the classes but today was big, and I did not have it with me. What happened later his really shows my perverse character even in my young age. I could not be bothered to go home to get it and I knew that the priest would want to see it to stamp it to show I have gone through all the procedures for the big day. So when at the confessional I just told him a lie! I said I could not get the book as my mum was not at home as she went to buy me the white shoes required for the ceremony! I remember it still today. Sitting in the pews, all kids in quiet commotion reciting their prayers and getting ready to confess their sins. The darkness of the church magnified the darkness of the sins we were persuaded we had committed. In my cheekiness though, I was concocting a lie to get away with my absent-mindedness. I guess church and I never were meant for each other.

Reading the book made all these memories rush back to the front of my mind.

I was now in one of the most religious countries in the world. I started hating the muezzins broadcasting their prayers five times a day, waking me up in the very early morning. It was nothing more to me than crowd control. Just like back home then when I was little we were all made to be scared of the god and his ambassadors on earth, here and now all the population mindlessly joined the prayers in the same spirit of submission and fear of eternal hell.

But back home the churches were for everybody; here the mosques are for men only. I never in my life saw a Muslim woman praying. Until now. My apartment is on the third level and right next to the yard wall there are some mud brick structures belonging to the poorer of this land. They live in incredibly Spartan conditions and I get to see it all first hand from above. Sometimes I feel like a god looking down on them… They seem perfectly friendly so do not really frown upon them… I am not sure what they really make out of me looking straight at their household but I take this privilege rather often. One afternoon I saw a woman in one of the enclosures throw a little rug in a certain direction and walked away busy with some chores. When the prayer broadcast started she joined though on the carpet in her own yard. This was my first Muslim female praying so I watched her intently. She was on the carpet hitting her head on the ground covered with the carpet. I think she is pregnant, so the growing belly added certain clumsiness to her moves but she did try her best to please the god. So yes, it was a proof that women do pray but more intimately at home.

All this segregation seems really strange to me and I do not even attempt to understand it. The only way for me to deal with it is just drawing the line between us and them. But then who is us? Who is the us that I could associate myself with? Certainly not the church back home. I have so many issues with this institution as with the segregation here. Back in China where there was no religious dominance I did not feel I had a connection there either. Sounding a bit theatrical I guess it is just me and the rest of the world. Just a spectator watching a show unfold, sometimes turning away in disgust and sometimes with eyes widening from curiosity…

Driving in Sudan may be quite a traumatic experience if one does not stay vigilant 100% of the time. Drivers do not follow traffic rules, they don’t use the indicators, they cut in line and do all sorts of things that just startle any person from a fairly civilized place. Just two weeks here and I saw a few collisions. Today one driver was chasing another with the intention of beating him up. Yesterday a tuk-tuk nearly flipped over just in front of us as it made a rapid swerve to avoid a truck on a bumpy road. One has to really watch everything around.

Another nightmare are the beggars at the lights. They always operate in packs just wanting money. They will splay their faces against your windows looking very miserable and waiting for a handout. Others try to sell tissues, soap, or other small stuff to make some money. It is a nuisance really and many drivers are guilted into pulling money out. My colleagues often keep biscuits in their glove compartments and give these to the begging children.I do not condone supporting beggars but it is everyone’s personal conscience matter.

Today two colleagues took me out and we ended up in a supermarket. On the way to the car a little girl accosted us for money; one colleague gave her a little bottle of juice and another felt sorry as she did not have any small thing to give to the girl and said she wanted to steal one of my apples I had just bought. I said she could have it. She took an apple from one of my bags and gave it to girl. Now the girl, seeing that the two women gave her each something, was pestering me! And it was my apple that she got! She would not let go. She followed us to the very car looking all miserable and trying really hard to make me feel guilty but I was more and more annoyed. I said that this was really cheeky and we all agreed it was. I got in the car but the girl held the door! We got quite annoyed by the persistence and when my companions started shouting in Arabic the girl went away. Just as we reversed there was a whole gang of them ambushing the car holding their hands out! Quite wild really. We managed to drive away. My colleagues said it was rather unusual what we had just encountered as apparently the beggars are never this persistent. To me it was just a typical behaviour that I knew from other places full of beggars. The unusual part for me was that it was a gang of girls. Typically it is the boys.

One of my friends said that one day she was approached by two boys: one was getting her attention at the front while the other was trying to open the back door to steal her things. When she realized what was going on she put out her cigarette on the front boy’s arm. She said this quickly sorted out the scam. Maybe this is the only good thing that comes out of smoking: having a burning weapon at the ready.

Another thing going on here is the little boys at parking spots who want your business to have the car cleaned. Apparently, they do a good job but there are always a few of them and again they are taking you on a guilt trip as it is really hard to pick one out of the group to assign the task to. It is only one dollar equivalent but they put you in an awkward situation knowing full well that many foreigners will give a dollar to each of them.I do not mind those car cleaners though so much. At least they are doing something useful and they are trying to earn their money. This kind of approach I rather like but I still feel quite uneasy about it.

I have to say I disagree with the whole concept of helping the poor out in this way by the foreigners. This is and Islamic country after all, and they should have some kind of help organized by their community mosques. Maybe the children are not Muslim, or they are recruited by some kind of extortion group who take most of their earnings away.

Quite frankly though, looking back at the history of charity in Africa, it has been here for many years and, by the look of things, not much has improved. We keep sending the funds and supplies and it seems as if it is being thrown down a bottomless pit. There are no African-run charities. All aid is organized by foreigners. Their offices are usually quite flash and the cars they are driving are certainly some of the best ones you see here, you notice them immediately as they have different number plates. You wonder if this is the best way of spending the donors’ money.

I remember the cliché motto saying that wanting to feed a man for a day you give him a fish, wanting to feed him for life you give him a fishing rod. It looks like some people are really interested in just giving the fishes to people all the time as they have been doing this for about 50 years now. Why would that be? Or have they not heard that cliché yet? Sure they have and chose to forget it as this way they have a constant supply of guilt donations and they can keep their own jobs and the status…

I am a little tired of hearing that these poor souls have so little and we are so privileged so they deserve our help. The truth is that many people in this country are very rich. Why are they not interested in sorting the whole situation out? Clearly, this is not on their minds. So, if the locals are not in the right frame of mind to deal with the unequal wealth distribution and to help the poorest improve their situation, why are we meddling with it? The locals are the ones who know the culture and the mindset. Maybe they know it is just a futile task. Some say there are no opportunities for the poor to get out of the poverty, but how does handing out a little food help that? To change the situation the party involved must be interested in the change. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. Is this too hard to understand? any form of unsustainable help is going to fail. Africa is its prime example, it does not take much digging to discover this.

I think the charity leaders know this very well but if they admitted this they themselves would have to join a queue back home for a handout as there would be few jobs waiting for them wherever they came from. So they keep pulling the wool over everybody’s eyes and reassure everybody what a great and important mission they run. Hypocrites.

“Education is not about teaching facts!” The big letters shouted at me across Eistein’s cartoon face. “It is about making people think!” smaller letters added at the bottom. This was a little cartoon added on the school website. I looked at it first with disbelief, then with anger and then with utter confusion. Yes, I get it; it is the twenty first century. Education needs to change to fit the global changes. But since when do we not need facts? Does thinking not go hand in hand with facts? Or vice versa? Who started promoting this idea that facts are completely obsolete and students are fine without them? Ok; I understand the despise for rote learning but why do we always have to make U-turns instead of gentle curves?

I am new to teaching chemistry and it takes a little time for me to prep things and I like to have all the facts in front of me not to make a fool out of myself. This is what, after all, I am being paid for. So, I take my time and plan all the reactions I am going to discuss and analyse. There are plenty of resources now available and many of them come in a form of a short video on utube. What the students do is watch some of them and then answer questions. The problem is I need the answers to check if they have come up with the right ones! Now, the problem is that seldom do the utube resources offer good quality explanations. Some of them are absolutely fabulous but many are less than adequate and offer little less than a cool video of some “magic” happening because of chemical processes. So having watched some of the videos I look for answers in the comments directly there. One person, probably in a similar predicament, asks for equations to go with some funky reactions that are cool to watch and might engage the students in the class. Instead of the equations, that would be a piece of cake for a real chemist, the answer is to go and search it on Google! That to me sums up the whole education now: I show you a cool reaction, tell you that it is really cool and that it looks “beautiful” as you can watch the change of colour but I do not explain things at the more advanced level. Shocking really. You want answers you go and find them on Google. Ask people who know more than you and the guy who shot the video. It turns out that the reaction is rather complex and I don’t want to look like an incompetent fool saying exactly this to my students. I want factual explanations to reactions illustrating concepts that are required by the curriculum. Is this too much to ask? But this needs facts!

Now the problem I have with this whole system is that very recently I myself graduated with a degree in Science, chemistry, but I really do not have the basic foundation to work things out myself. I did not just scrape by on my courses; I was an average student, passing all the assessment at the first attempt fitting in the middle of the bell curve. I have passed all my assessments and I still cannot figure out some of the things I am supposed to be teaching at KS4 level. How is that possible? Well, you do not need facts in your head! Nobody will push you to have the basics in your head. Now the key to success is knowing how to get the information you need! Thinking is all you need in the modern education system. Only how can you think if you do not have the facts? Year 10 students do not know symbols for chemical elements; they constantly ask for the periodic table. I claim that such a lack of basic knowledge is an impediment to critical thinking as it is hugely distracting having to recall foundation definitions when working on a more complex task. Yet the modern stance is that the young minds do not need being cluttered with things like factual knowledge; that’s obsolete!

Another thing I found out last week is that my head of department, a very down to earth and personable woman, tells me she does not believe in homework. I look at her with a slight disbelief (I know, not the first time that day) and ask why they have homework schedule if there is no homework then. It turns out homework is optional. I have worked at schools where the teacher would be told off if homework was not set when it was on the schedule and it was a major pain. Therefore, for my own sake, I could follow this new religion of not believing in homework as it would make my life much easier. She starts saying there is research showing that homework is not crucial for academic achievement. I guess these days there is a research paper to prove anything and everything. Plus in her books, if she needs to give homework that means the class was kind of wasted as not everything was covered. She might have a point but I will need to see it for myself. I am not saying this is a wrong or right approach. I am saying I like this for my own convenience. I am sure the kids love it too! Nothing like being a popular teacher!

I am thinking about the Einstein’s cartoon face and wondering how he would like his cartoon face advocating the new philosophy of teaching. He might have been thrilled after all as he himself is quoted to say that if the facts don’t fit your theory you should change the facts! This is the second time in a week that I see him being advertised for educational purposes (and this is just one school). We had training with a very important speaker about the changes to the curriculum we are going to implement next year. This is all about engaging the students. Einstein’s example was mentioned as one of a very disengaged student who was so disappointed with school that he simply stopped attending it. And what a genius he turned out to be! So, this should teach us that we have to make our classes interesting! But, perversely, maybe if we didn’t constantly worry about entertaining all the students in the class more geniuses would be discovered. They would simply say they were not interested, slammed the door and it would be the last time they set their foot in school and started working on their own? Maybe we, teachers in the classroom following the new guidelines, are keeping them so occupied they cannot find the inner genius within them? Let them just drop out and find out? But we must not forget the “every child matters” campaign… So, Einstein dropped out but his passion for learning apparently did not go away. Would this be a good example to promote schools? To me, it is entirely the opposite. If the official version of Einstein’s genius is to be believed, his example shows that you do not need a school to become a leading scientist! So why keep sending your child to this institution? And why do the schools keep using his image even though there was a mutual hostility?

Oh, because now schools are different and if Einstein was to make a come back he would simply love it there as they make every child there engaged. Every child there is told that they are special and that they can if they believe they can. All that nonsense. Ultimately though, deep down in the heart of hearts, Einstein would probably approve of schools where facts don’t matter any more, so the schools using his face in their adverts maybe hide in plain sight the obvious disservice they do to all the societies.

I take that Freeman Dyson is onto something saying that when science wasn’t taught at schools in England the English won many Nobel awards and then when the teaching of science improved the number of English Nobel prizes went down markedly… Just saying…

Modern education is not about facts, no, it is about being cool, watching cool videos and having cool teachers who do not give homework. That last part I might become a follower of! It might be cool.

Upon arrival at my apartment in Khartoum it turned out that on my balcony in one of the plant pots I had two chicks. Not a typical place for keeping your young when you are a mother dove but I guess she had her reasons to pick that spot. January being one of the cooler months, but temperature was rather hot especially around midday. There was little shade there but the chicks must have been there for a few days and survived thus long. The mother was not to be seen and I left them alone. I would peek from the window at them every now and then. I liked the idea of having some creatures, even wild, to keep me company. In the evening I had a better look at them; one was literally half the size of the other. I worried for him but little was to be done. The next day when I got back home the little one was dead. Unsure of what to do I only shifted his dead body a little to give more space to the survivor. I wondered if the mother had been around. She must have been or else both of them would have been dead. Someone said it was the second lot on the balcony so I was a little more reassured that my buddy would be ok. The routine was now that every morning and every afternoon after work I would check in on my buddy. He was changing; the very fluffy feathers after a week resembled more what you would expect out of a bird. He got stronger and was standing on his feet, walking a little on the pot rim curious about the world around him. On the weekend I spotted the mother feeding him: they both got quite agitated and he would stick his beak down her throat and she regurgitated whatever she had inside her for him. I felt rather privileged to have this spectacle right in front of me on my balcony without David Attenborough’s narration. She was back quite often but this was the first day I was able to observe this. I had gotten rid of the dead body as I thought it started decomposing. Although in this heat I was not sure rotting would take place; maybe things just dried up completely? I had no idea. The buddy looked stronger every day as his mother seemed to have known what she was doing. Things were going well but on Sunday afternoon I got home and as usual checked in on the nest. It was empty! That was totally unexpected and I was confused. The bird would not have been strong enough to start learning to fly. I looked out down on the ground; no trace of a bird body. I was saddened. I went inside. A bird calling could be heard. The kind I used to hear at home but not here before. I looked outside; it was the mother calling out. I knew it was in vain, but whatever happened to my buddy I will never know. I was very sad: first the small one died, now this one. I did not want to take it as any bad omen. I tend not to be superstitious. The low sound of the dove mother only made the matters worse for me. I felt sorry for her.

I started thinking about her and all the efforts that she put in, all in vain. I was in a country that was not friendly to women. Or was it true about females in general? Or is the whole world not really female friendly?

Women here are wrapped up completely or nearly so. To be fair men are too but they are wearing white, the best colour for sunny weather. Most women just donning black dresses and black trousers underneath. This cannot be comfortable. I thought about how many children women here had and how they were not given a say in it. And how the female genitalia mutilation was certainly not a thing of the past.

I was thinking of the whole female part of the world, humans and animals. We have to bear the toll of reproduction. Well, with some exceptions in both worlds. How is this fair? How can the whole world be arranged this way? And how can we just sit there and take it? I could say I was lucky, I was given the free hand in organizing my own fertility to be controlled but I was in minority. A great minority throughout the history! Only recently had the medicine technology allowed women to think of their reproduction as something to be harnessed. And that only in some parts of the world. How lucky for me! All female animals seem to spend most their mature life either pregnant or looking after their young. Humans do not seem to be that different. As soon as kids grow up the older generation seem to demand grandchildren…

I was still thinking of that chick. Surely, some creature snatched him for food. Looking at nature and everything in it, we are all just a part of the pecking order. Each organism is seen as a morsel of food for its predator. This seems to be the working order of things. Be vigilant and run or be eaten.

Maybe being eaten at an early stage spares you the meaningless struggle of life?

Many years ago as a fun activity I was dragged to a paintball game. We were divided in two groups and there was to be a small prize for the winning team. It was hot. We were handed camouflage outfits, helmets and guns and off we went to the forested area to have our battle. It was a feeling I will never forget, a totally stupid feeling. You try to have your eyes around your head whilst you realize it is quite impossible. You feel vulnerable and exposed. That toy gun did not give much reassurance and it was a game after all but the feeling itself was still there. Nobody wants to be shot first! And it was not even real shooting! I do not remember how well I did, I thought this whole thing was just a pathetic attempt of entertainment but this feeling will stay with me even though it is not ever to be compared what it is like to be in nature surrounded by predators. But then maybe animals do not overthink it the way I do. So maybe they are not constantly feeling in danger…

But that brings me to the topic of war. The soldiers must feel the same thing only a few orders of magnitude inflated. After all the wars are real, the guns and bullets are real and it is their real life on the line. I will never understand how people can voluntarily enlist and go to the front. I will never understand how it is a turn on for some women to be with a guy in uniform. But then there are many things I will never understand. How can we consciously, willingly, go to war and how can we endorse wars? I can understand tribal conflicts where it is a lot manhandling your enemy. This seems fair: men against men. But when technology takes over and one bomb can take tens, hundreds of lives that is just silly. When politicians make deals behind closed curtains and naïve people decide to put their lives in danger just in the name of some ideology that to me is pure madness.

I wonder if this illusory feeling of men protecting the whole tribe is behind the culture of women toiling away day in and out to repay or to pre-pay the men for their protection? Is this kind of an investment to secure the men’s loyalty for when  a conflict breaks out they will put themselves out and go and fight?

It seems to me that all over the world generally speaking women are oppressed. I am not a feminist; I would only like to see things fair. It does not take much observation to notice that in many parts of the world women are responsible for so many more things than men are. And yet we let the men dominate us, put us in an inferior position, make us run around the mill and then we come back and ask for more. Thinking back about this poor mother dove. She gave her chicks the best she had, building a nest, finding food, feeding them. Where was the male dove? Frolicking around or getting strong for another mating dance? And the next mating season she will go through exactly the same. I just look at this and a wave of sadness overcomes me. Why is life so unfair? Why was I left with no chick on my balcony? Who the fuck took my buddy away?

I have recently received my Bachelors of Science and now started to teach Science and Chemistry on my own for the first time. Before, I was in Science classes as an in-class support teacher for students with low English level. I decided it would be a good move to get my own degree and teach Science as this would give me better job opportunities.

Since it is a new area for me, I am not always very confident, so it takes me quite a bit of prep to get ready for classes and I always want to make sure that I have most of the possible answers at hand. Let me tell you, my year 10 class are an inquisitive bunch! This is for the wrong reasons though! They keep asking me why, why, why all the time. Do you know why? Because they don’t have the fucking facts in their heads!!! They mix up basic elements and their symbols, they don’t know the reactivity series, they don’t know their acids and bases, the list just goes on and on!

I am trying to make this easy for them and to explain things from the very start in very simple terms. I use the internet for this. We are covering chemical reactions now, so I want them to know why they happen in the first place. I want to get a few ideas and them combine it into one logically woven description of the scientific facts. A few ideas seem like good leads and I explore what people have to say; some of it very good, some of it just so-so and here comes my fucking favourite:

Remember the question: Why do chemical reactions happen?

So, I quote after quora.com:

Picture. Name.name: I have a Bachelors in Education, Science Comprehensive (Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Earth Science)

Based on my understanding of chemistry derived from college classes and nursing school education, I believe it comes down to the physical and electromagnetic characteristics of atoms and molecules. Simply put, it’s like there are a bunch of locks and keys floating around. When the right key finds the right lock, a reaction occurs. Temperature, concentration, catalysts, amount of reactant, characteristics of that atom, etc. can speed up or slow down reactions. Some reactions are slow. Some are fast. Some sustain life. Some end it. Some particles are small. Some are massive. All of these mitigate any reaction.

End of fucking quotation.

Seriously? Based on your fucking understanding of chemistry? Did we fucking ask you for a parable? What is this about? Locks and keys floating around? I wish I had a key, I would lock you up till you stopped babbling about your fucking limited understanding of chemistry! This sort of description would have landed me an F with my Chemistry teacher in my High school! Fucking keys and locks. They magically fucking join and fucking magic happens and people get their BSc’s just because they can fucking spell their name correctly! Oh yeah, please tell us more about your fucking background (NOT!).

So this is what this inquiry based learning yields. Mediocrity. Descriptions by association. Rubbish!

But I would be unfair saying that there are no good resources out there on the Internet. They are usually free and often much better than the resources you have to pay for. So now I have to unlock my own curiosity to explain things to my students so they don’t have to read about some locks and keys floating in the universe of the academically challenged with limited knowledge but expanded egos.