School Starts!!

YES!! School has started and I've been really excited to have something to do finally in my community. We have six teachers and a headmaster at our JHS, but so far there has yet to be one day when every teacher shows up. The school is run on a prefect system, and the only other experience I've had with prefects has been reading Harry Potter. Also, we have different sections (Red, Gold, and Green - the colors of the Ghanaian Flag) that compete for points depending on how well they behave and how well they do on test... the only time I've known of such a system is once again Harry Potter and their Houses. Prefects are students that have been given responsibilities like sweep the library every morning, make sure the school grounds are clean, or lead the school during Assembly, so its like halfway between a student and teacher because if other students misbehave, the prefects report them and even sometimes take discipline into their own hands (discouraged).
For a school with around 110 students and 6 teachers, it makes sense to hand off responsibility to students as much as possible. In fact, I (including being in charge of Red section) hardly need to do any real work. Walking to school, students come to carry my backpack for me. If I'm hungry, students go and fetch me lunch. If a teacher leaves something at my house way across town, its far too much work for the teacher to walk there: he or she tells a student where it is and to go and bring it. Also, if a teacher's yard need to be mowed (called weeding), students are rallied up, and instead of going to school they go and weed!
We had a staff meeting this week. Was it held after school or before school? No, it took up half the day and all the teachers were required to attend in full. When classes are supposed to be taught but the teacher doesn't show up or is otherwise unable to teach, there is no substitute teacher. The students sit for the entire period in the classroom. I've tried to address this waste of time with my headmaster and how to change it, and he said yes to my ideas but means no to implementation.
Every Wednesday morning is Worship time, so all the students gather in a classroom to sing and dance and pray. This was Wednesday, we had a guest motivational speaker come in to inspire them to try in school. I didn't participate in worship so I was in the teachers lounge doing lesson plans, and my colleague, Clement, comes to get me to come be to motivational speaker. Me, taken totally unawares, thought it was a joke. Surely, I could at least have a few minutes to prepare. Nope, he said, I must come now and they expected me to talk for at least 15 minutes in front of our whole school and I could not get out of it. So I gave a talk for 15 minutes on the fly about why they should try in school.
I do not mean to paint my school in a bad light, there are just a lot of things that an American can come in and think "This should change, that should change and things would be better", but we have limited resources here and motivation. Students have many chores when they get home, and parents take education as something only done at school. It will also take students a long time to earn any money, possibly 7 years from now. Or, if they stop school, they can immediately go out and earn some cash. Even though we are supposed to teach in English all the time, some students can barely read and others can barely speak, and this is by 7th grade! I am however, happy that there are some students who have a desire to excel, and I am teaching them ICT (information communication technology) two days a week in addition to school to some students.
Favorite line in grading papers so far: "sources of data provide facts bitch not create them"
Number of canings witnessed: 10+
Random names of students in my classes: Redeemer, Saviour, Peace, Divine, Grace, Blessing