Hope School Week One

Well we have just had our first week of teaching at Hope School. The resources here are minimal, but then so is the administrative expectations, discipline issues and playground duties, so it is swings and roundabouts. Simple things like the pictured covered outdoor eating / work area for staff really make the place comfortable. There is a fan above the area and a kitchen next to it. I have enjoyed using this space for eating and for lesson preparation during a free period. The school has wireless Internet so staff can sit at these tables with their laptops and have access to the school network and Internet. I guess wireless was cheaper to establish than running cabling across the site.

This week the school had major problems with power, so often our rooms were dark and the fans inoperable, while the classrooms were over 30 degress, but I didn't hear any child have a major winge. The power supply was to be expanded during the holidays, but obviously wasn't, it should be this weekend though. The school owns a generator that kicks in when the power is out, though it was struggling with its own issues, so we had power outages more than often than we had power. Thankfully the server and main printer have a UPS (Uninteruptable Power Supply) so lesson prep was gernerally not affected if one was using a laptop.

The teachers are predominantly Kiwi, Aussie, Brits and Americans. We all get on very well, though we do not always understand each others colloquialisms which leads to plenty of laughs. The school support staff and classroom helpers are Khmer Christians. The children are a mix of Korean, Khmer and Europeans with a smattering of English, Americans and Aussies. - 25 Nationalities in all.