In Which I Don't Help Students

Most of my students are sufficiently hardworking.  Some of my students are really really hardworking and smart.   I try to hold onto that knowledge during days such as today.

I have invigilated my last exam and noticed a peculiar tendency among the students taking such exams to tell me they are nervous and will I please help them.  By this they mean pass them whether they deserve it or not.  This was well illustrated by one young woman who I do not know, she wasn't actually in my class.  She was in last year's programming class.  She failed that exam, for some reason didn't take the supplementary exam then, but got permission to take my supplementary exam instead.  Umm, ok.  The deputy department head gave her permission, so who am I to argue?  Then this student told me she was certain that she had failed because she forgot everything from last year so I "must" help her.  Really now?  I actually don't think I must do any such thing.  

I help students by giving them the lesson notes on request, and making myself available to answer questions and holding a review session before the exam.  I do not help by cheating for them while grading.   Of course, the students that I know were at my seminar will get extra credit, but that's because without my encouraging it they showed up every day on time, with the notes that they'd read in advance, and helped their neighbors.  I could not be more selfishly proud that when people from the community came to the seminar, they saw not just studious university students, they saw my studious university students.  Those students earned some extra credit help, I'm not giving it to some kid I've never seen before who didn't even try to contact me to ask me how to prepare for my exam and thinks I must pass her.  Must forsooth.  I have standards.  

Just to make my day slightly more fun, my troublesome student who cried to me for an hour to change his failing grade (class, not exam grade, so no supplementary to make it up) sent me a text telling me that he had met with my department head who now wanted me to meet with him in order to find a way to "overcome his situation." I checked with my department head, who had told him no such thing.  She had, in fact, told him that the deadline for grade complaints was over and deal with it.  I am really mad at him for lying to me like that.  Seriously, how dumb does he think I am?  I named my headache after him.

Then I tried to find out what the class schedule for this new semester is, since classes started yesterday, but the class schedule isn't actually written yet.  I give up on today.  I will try again tomorrow.  

Jovitha

Jovitha, the Peace Corps medical secretary in Tanzania, recently died after a long illness.  She was in her 20s and had to spend her last days in the hospital.  Other volunteers can and have described the level of care in some hospitals.  I hope Jovitha's was better, but I don't know.

If any of the volunteers were anywhere close to that sick, we would be helicoptered off to Johannesburg for good quality health care paid for entirely by the US government.  But we have that privilege.  Tanzanians don't.  Not even the staff who support us medically, make our doctor appointments, mail us medications, and fill out the paperwork that would send us to Johannesburg in emergencies.

Rest in peace, Jovitha.  

Caturday Post: The 10 Commandments of the Cat

Because teh interwebs needs moar kittehs and I really miss mine.  Photos and commandments courtesy of my lovely sister, who selflessly agreed to babysit my kittehs for my Peace Corps service.

Thou art the cat.  There is nothing and no one more important.

Thou shalt not strive for captioned internet memehood.

Thou shalt not hunt in vain.

Remember the afternoon nap, to keep it holy.  

Honor the Mockingbird.

Thou shalt kill anything which deserveth it.

Thou shalt spread love and joy.

Thou shalt steal anything which pleaseth.

Thou shalt lie on rugs and sharpen thy claws upon them.

Thou shalt covet thy fellow cat's food, and they fellow cat's treats, and hir blankie, and hir sunny spot, and hir catnip mousie.

Respect for Zanzibari Street Food

One of my favorite food blogs, Serious Eats, just did a thing on street food in Zanzibar!  Also good for photos of a market, which I don't take because markets are great places to get things stolen so I never take my camera.

It is bad for me to read food blogs and realize all the wonderful things I could be eating were I not here, but I do it anyway, and dream.

In Which I Invigilate Supplementary Exams

Some of my students failed my exams at the end of last semester.  The result being that I have to give them another exam.  Except not all the students who failed, because we had a department-wide epidemic of failure, the response to which was to "standardize" (curve?) all the student grades so that not as many failed.  Did I miss something that would make this make sense as a way to identify and fix problems in the educational system?  Make our institution more respected as one where people have to work to receive a degree?  Then I talked to another lecturer who teaches three modules, and with no standardization, he will have about 150 supplemental exams to grade.  Suddenly, a reason for standardization appears.  Or better yet, not giving supplementary exams.  It's not like standards are even that high!  A=81-100, B=61-80, C=41-60, D=21-40, F<21. Doesn't that make you feel better about the C students in the US?  Anyway, I'm giving a second round of exams, which are very similar to the first but with different numbers and phrasing.  I am also explaining to students who tell me there must have been a mistake made that yes, that was really your exam mark, and no, I am not going to change your grade, particularly if you keep changing your story on why you didn't turn in something important.  Telling me that you came to me for a positive solution and only found a negative response (Tanzanians communicate very indirectly, so this is about as close to "you're mean!" as it's going to get) will not help.  So it hasn't been the best of days.  I don't like saying "no and this conversation is over" to crying people but the conversation had lasted an hour already and I hadn't even received an admission of lying, despite me pointing out that it was happening.  Why do I have to be the adult in the room, anyway?  I spent the weekend at a sports and games thing in Njombe put on by and for volunteers and my great contribution was the sword fighting (with padded pvc pipes) where I got to scream and hit things and managed to chase one young gentleman of the Peace Corps all the way across a basketball court while he cowered and yelled "get away from me you crazy woman!" This was very satisfying.  I think it would be unethical to use the same method on my students.

In the name of Mbeya region, I defeat Iringa region's champion.  

Thing on my Floor

In Which I Think about Farming

I normally don't.  I'm supposed to do some permagardening in my spare time as an example thing, but gardening is a lot of work and I live in an apartment building without a yard (which relieves my guilt about not wanting to garden).  So I really don't think much about farming.  My friend Veronica who sells me onions I know farms because sometimes she is at her farm rather than at the market, and then I'm sad to not see her, but that's about as much as I think about farming.  Recently, however, Bible verses from Leviticus have been all over Facebook as people wait for the ruling from the Supreme Court about marriage.  The typical way this conversation goes is:

1) Someone quotes the verses from Leviticus about the abominability of homosexuality.

2) Someone else quotes some other commandments from Leviticus that are either abominable to follow or just Somewhat Silly.

I saw one of the Somewhat Silly verses linked, and it reads as follows.

¹⁹ Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.

I never really thought about this Biblical monocropping commandment other than that it does indeed seem Somewhat Silly, except now that I have seen subsistence farming, this now seems a terrible horrible no good very bad agrarian practice.  At best, it is an inefficient use of land and at worst renders the agrarian system unsustainable, so for the subsistence farmer this is malnutrition and starvation kind of bad.  Let's take a bad-case and unfortunately all-too-real situation:  a woman is found to be HIV positive and her husband leaves her and takes pretty much everything (because traditional marriage means the husband has all rights and the wife none) but she's lucky enough to be left with a house and a little bit of a yard.  She now has to use that yard to be as self-sufficient as possible.  With good farming techniques and please god the rains aren't late this can work.  The typical arrangement is to grow corn together with beans.    Then she has carbohydrates and protein from a sustainable agricultural plan in which the legumes are fixing nitrogen while the corn depletes it.  If monocropping is dictated she can't efficiently use what little land she has to provide for as many of her needs as possible and she can't intelligently plant different crops together in order to preserve the fertility of the soil.   Even in your not-quite-so-badly-off subsistence farming scenarios, we do have to work off the assumption that land is limited, and having legumes planted together with grasses is way better for the sustainability of the agrarian system.  Corn is the textbook example (literally.  I read about this in elementary school where they taught us that the native Americans always planted corn together with beans and squash and called it the Three Sisters and the pilgrims were totally grateful to learn it right up to the point that they genocided the natives) but even in the Levitical time when the ancient Hebrews were mostly nomadic herders anyway and corn was a generic term for grains because maize crops are an American export, monocropping is still a method that, while it may be good in some or even many situations, subsistence farming isn't really one of them.