Suprise - finals week!

We arrived back in site after the long return journey from Nampula and
were surprised to hear from our fellow teachers that we were giving
finals that week, since we still had three weeks left in the
trimester. Apparently that's how they do finals here because when we
went to school on Monday we found the entire schedule altered to
accomodate testing, and that we were expected to proctor a history
exam that morning. Students take cheating to the next level for
finals. The school is literally littered in cheat sheets after every
session; we made a collection of our favorites, including one which
was bound and covered like a small book and had crib notes on every
discipline. Since teachers aren't allowed to monitor their own classes
during finals, we had no way to control cheating on our tests. Grade
averages were much higher than on previous tests we administered
ourselves. Students have learned that their American teachers actually
crack down on cheating. They usually moan and sigh when we enter the
room to administer a test, and cheer when we merely walk by. Given the
amount of cheating going on, monitoring tests can be stressful and
present moral/emotional dilemmas since calling a student out on
cheating during the finals means they will receive a 0 and almost
surely fail that class for the trimester.