From our room I heard children chanting and so off I went to find the source. Under a cane stalked roof on a dusty floor covered particulate by mats, I found an older man with a long stick point to a chipped blackboard covered with Arabic & a mass of children chanting the words. Shortly, he cam over to see me & when I asked if I could stay, he grinned & said certainly. I watched as he moved among the grouped students...about 70...getting each group to recite or read from a book they held. Often 3 groups were reciting at the same time but different lessons. Kids not under his direct supervision were doing the what you'd expect...swatting each other, pulling hair, tossing paper wads...mostly the boys...made me smile.
At one point, the teacher brought 2 very young girls over & had them recite the ABC's & spell some words for me. He tenderly put his hand on the shoulder of one of them and said she is very smart & comes to school every day. Putting his hand on the other, he said she too was very smart but did not come to school as often...then shook his head.
After about 30 minutes, the teacher dismissed one group at a time having the last group clean up. Then the teacher came over sit by me (I was on a block of cement holding up a post.). When I told him I'd been a teacher, he grinned & said "Then you understand." As I'd suspected, he'd divided the kids by levels..not age...six mats...K-5. Pretty sure he didn't do a formal testing. If I understood him correctly, many of the kids go to another school maybe in the morning as he only taught in the afternoon.
He had been teaching 30 years. He grinned when I complimented him on the kindness he showed his students, the control he had over the large group & the respect the students had for him. I love being in classrooms..anywhere & everywhere!!
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