Faking it

It was 5 minutes before I started my first class of the day when I was left in one of the most terrifying positions to be in as a teacher: two hours and no lesson plan.

Beninese people are very particular about doing things in the order in which things should be done. And at the appropriate time at which they are designated to be done. So, this morning, my director asked me to suspend calculating semester grades (what I had planned to do in class: all grades are an average of quiz and exam scores; it sounds like a waste of class time, but to do it in front of the students is the fairest way to do it.) until next Monday, because, mainly, next week is the week that has been designated as the week that grades will be calculated. 

And so, at the 15-minute break between classes, I sought out my work partner and best friend at school and person least likely to judge me for the predicament in which I had found myself. Also, he is supposed to team-teach this class with me, so half the burden was also on him.

I found that Kande had been caught in the same position I was: a class and nothing to do. “Don’t worry,” he told me as we walked together to the classroom. “We’ll find something to do.”

And so, we started class. We talked for a while, then had a student write the date and then Kande put a matching activity and told my class to recopy the activity, something that I normally don’t make my students do to save time.

I caught him in the back of the classroom.

“Do they really need to recopy the activity?”

He shook his head slightly. “No. But it will waste time.”