Getting teaching resources

When I was last in Kigali, I asked a rep. from a publishing company to come and visit us at Rugerero and show us some material that teachers could use in their classrooms. He did...

A city man drove his 4WD from Kigali to Rugerero to day.
In his boot: books, books and more books.
He is a Macmillan bloke and has its looks.
We all come to look at those books
Brought from the boot
to the teachers’ nook...

For a few teachers who have hardly ever opened a book to prepare a class, this is a bit of a culture shock. They are bewildered and I am hoping that they will feel a moral obligation to work harder...
I visited a few Form 1 classes before Macmillan man’s visit and I was appalled by the lack of professionalism of the teachers and the total absence of preparation. One of the classrooms was in total darkness, the teacher had not bothered opening the shutters. I do intend to work with this group of teachers this Saturday... It seems that there is an unwritten rule at the school that stipulates: ‘the least qualified and enthusiastic teachers will be in charge of the most senior classes, The most qualified and keen teachers will be in charge of senior classes... The former group consists of women mostly, the latter of men exclusively. I will need to question this strategy on Saturday.
I feel that the group of teachers has accepted my presence in their midst (I make sure I wear a white teacher apron, like them). I can be more open and direct, more critical with them. I will have to if I want the teaching culture to become more professional...
Back to the publisher’s visit... We will buy a number of these books and will keep them in the staff – resource room – which is gradually starting to look like one. Whenever I see an unused table or chair around the school, I pinch it and bring it to the Teahcers room. Yesterday, I even ‘scored’ a cupboard which was in the assistant to the headmistress secret office. He never told me about it. He has hardly been at school in the last two weeks... but that is another story...
Back to the publisher thread... I have made sure that some of the books will be bought by the headmistress. I made her work out how much money she will have available to buy material for teachers: she came up with the figure of 300 000 RWF (about 600$).We’ll take it!!! Abana will pay for the rest. Thanks, Abana.!