Fly on the wall

Today I felt like a fly on the wall. Since it is still exam week there really isn't any work for me. For the last three days I have been typing a listing of all the school's textbooks and library books. Yesterday I stopped somewhere around the 900th entry. I am sick of hunching over the child size desk, typing the day away. So when Sr. Bernie invited me to come to her classroom, I jumped at the chance to do something different. I spent the day sitting at the desk in the back of the room, just observing. With the exception of yelling at a couple of kids for hitting each other and distributing toilet paper, I really didn't do any work today. After a half hour of last minute cramming, Bernie wrote the test questions on the board and the children wrote the answers in their notebooks. The school can't even afford the cost of photocopying tests. In between today's two tests, the children got their results from yesterday. Children who did poorly (a 20/30 or below) were flogged in the hopes of motivating them to do better. Teachers give harsher punishments for poor test scores. All week I have heard children crying after being beaten. It bothers me that I have become accustomed to floggings. I miss having work to do but I always find it interesting watching the children.