Basket.

There were lessons yesterday but there might as well not have been. No one was in the mood for learning and hardly anyone brought their books. Not much I can do there; students will be students. I ended up teaching them E Maths instead because of the familiar unearthly obsession with doing Maths that students tend to have, and their test is next week anyway. However, they asked me why the square root of 3 times the square root of 3 is equals to 3, and I was at a loss to answer. I mean... I also covered Chinese class with my Sec 2s and demonstrated how bilingual I am, although their teacher contrived to hand me a stack of blank paper with a deceiving worksheet on the top, much to their joy. Interesting day.

If my students are any indication, the humanities are stone-dead in this country. I experienced the full litany of ignorance this week: my history class has never heard of the United Nations, which is well, only a vast, indelibly controversial and newsworthy international organisation with 200 member nations; my English class told me they were taking "A Midnight Summer's Dream" and "Killing the Mockingbird" for Literature; and my Geography students set a new standard for bad with a singular pass in 85 test scripts, and 50% at that. I fully understand that many of these things are new to them, but I do not believe it is excusable not to know what the United Nations is, and not to know the titles of books you have (supposedly) been studying for nearly one term already. Before anyone comes in with "what do you expect", I do not expect a lot out of my students, and I do not believe it is excessive to expect them at least to know what the UN is. So there.

I sincerely do not believe any of them are stupid. They are simply ignorant. The latter can be fixed, while the former cannot.