Bureaucracy 1

Schemes rank among the biggest wastes of time I have ever encountered. Kenyan teachers are required to write schemes of what they plan to teach over the course of a term. The general idea is that you take a copy of the government syllabus and transcribe it onto forms issued by the school. For example an entry might look like:

Week: 6
Lesson: 28-29
Topic/Subtopic: Nitrogen compounds/properties of ammonia
Objective: By the end of these lessons, the learners should be able to 1) state the chemical and physical properties of ammonia, 2) Describe tests to identify the presence or absence of ammonia, 3) perform laboratory tests using ammonia.
Teaching/Learning Activities: Lecture and demonstrations
References: KLB Form 3 Chemistry book pp. 137-139
Remarks: Well taught

And we're supposed to do this for pretty much every lesson of the term. In theory, it could be a good idea; in practice, it is a waste of time. The previous math teacher at my school would come to school drunk, skip his lessons, and all the students would fail exams. Yet he had impeccable schemes and he always included the remark "well taught". Teachers are also supposed to fill out lesson plans and then records of work. All this paperwork serves to cut down more trees and typically is not read by anyone.

I had relied on my headmaster's non-presence thus far to avoid filling them out. With the arrival of a deputy headmaster at our school, there is now someone to follow up on this process. I spent my Saturday afternoon at school filling out the paperwork (always in duplicate; one copy for me, one for the office) and chuckling to myself about how ridiculous this all was. I decided to cut a few corners and include more comments in my schemes.

Remarks: These lessons were disrupted because other teachers removed students from my class to punish them.
or
Remarks: Lessons were lost because headmaster pulled the teacher out of class to type letters for him.

Now, if the headmaster wanted to observe my teaching or perhaps sit down with me and discuss my syllabus coverage, he might be able to glean some idea of whether or not I am doing well in my teaching. Unfortunately, this radical idea is completely out of the question here. Even in training, most of us thought this practice pointless. Still, both our technical trainer and our Peace Corps supervisor felt that they would make us more effective teachers. I still haven't figured out how...