Heyyyy! Its been a long time, I shouldn'ta left you... Sooooo, I'm back. The deal is my second computer has failed me and I've been without all this time. I could have just gone to my schools computer lab BUT, my patience is STILL too short to deal with such incompetent machinery. Alot of small things have happened since my last post so i'll try my best to get it all in. I'm doing my posts from my phone so your understanding in this matter is appreciated. Also, i don't think i can seperate paragraphs either. Perhaps i'll split the posts by events so it'll be easier. (and Chuck, this is with you in mind.) I'll just start new topics with the pound/hash #. Here goes, i believe i left off discussing my groups' re re connect, training. We basically had a chance to debrief on term 1, which for most of us, was a complete disaster. We really didn't have a grasp on what we were doing, how to teach learners who can't read, and deal with contradictory policies. Here's the deal with school: learners only need a 30% to pass. In the beginning of the school year, this standard was changed to 55 percent, but after receiving term 1 results, it went back to 30 nation wide. Wtf?! I understand the catastrophy they would have on their hands if people were failing on such large scales, but seriously, 30% isn't exactly progress. As a teacher, if your learners don't atleast get this, you feel as though you have failed. Thats a shitty feeling. Issue number 2 with the schools: transfer policy. If a child fails any grade between 1 and 4 more than once, we just keep moving them on, transfering them to the next grade. Same with grades 5 through 7, they can only fail once, all the other years, we just pass them along. How do I do this? So a kid who couldn't read or write their own mother tongue is now expected to read and write english? And somehow pass? Did I leave something out? Oh yea, they are taught in their mother tongue to grade 4. Then their medium of instruction changes to English. All the sudden they have to read, write, and speak only english. Whose fucking idea was this? I get wanting to preserve your culture and tradition, but they're screwing the kids. Well, I don't feel so shitty anymore knowing all this. One term down, 5 more to go. On my way to Cape Town, SA!