3/10
in school based training this week and last. Five of us were assigned to Kitende secondary school, and when we showed up and were introduced during a morning assembly to all 1000+ students I had a serious how the hell did I end up here? moment. Apparently we have hilarious accents, most of the students laughed when we introduced ourselves. The idea was that each trainee would be assigned to a few teachers shadow them the first week, co-teach the second, and solo teach for the last week. During my shadowing I learned that “Uganda time” doesn’t just apply to buses and meetings but schools as well. The physics lab that I was observing was supposed to start at 10:00. The teacher showed up at school at 10:20 and naturally had to take tea and chat with colleagues. At 10:40 I ask him when we are going to class and he tell me to wait in the teachers lounge while he goes to set up the classroom. Meanwhile the students are sitting in their classroom waiting. Finally at 11:55 we start the physics lab and while no actual physics was done the students did learn how to fill out a chart neatly in pencil, (how could you use pen? And a black pen at that!) And to blindly plug values into a given equation. And there you have it, you all now understand how to derive the acceleration due to gravity using knowledge of pendulums. And this is one of the better schools in Uganda. On the plus side their tables and graphs are neater than any I've ever made.
It turned out to be too difficult to organize the co-teaching so I got a bunch of solo teaching practice. My first class was a bit of a mess, I kicked over my water bottle spilling water everywhere and dusted wiped chalk dust all over my clothes. A good start. The next day I was explaining probability tree diagrams when it started to rain, but downpour better describes it. The school roofs are just sheets of tin and it quickly got to the point where I could hardly hear my own voice. We had been told that often when it rains, class is effectively over, teachers just wait it out. I couldn’t bare to just stand there for another hour with fifty Ugandans staring at me so I wrote a quadratic 4 times on the blackboard and called up four “volunteers” to the board to race to factor them. I had been told that Ugandans love competition, but I didn’t think they would like it as much as they did. After they watched the first group, everyone was laughing and excited and wanted their turn to compete. Good to know that I have that card up my sleeve now.
Way to think outside of the box Ryan!!! You and those students are sure going to learn a lot from one another. They are so lucky to have you.
ReplyDeleteThe Toporeks of Chicago are sending you much love.
And I thought I had it tough with 22 kindergartners! Tricks up the sleeve are a teacher's best friend - I have no doubt you'll come up with a bunch of them.
ReplyDeleteHow wonderful to read about your experiences, Ryan! I really enjoyed opening up your blog today and finding out what you've been up to. You have a very entertaining way of writing, and I felt like I could picture where you are and what you are doing. Keep us posted!
All is well here in DM. Going through the typical midwest stuff - high school soccer games, prom for Sam (tonight) - the boy can get his GQ on when it's necessary, and waiting for the weather to quit being so Pacific NW-like (way too much rain and overcast skies for April). No malaria meds to contend with, although Erin has a stye the size of a small pea under her eyelid that will have to be surgically removed next month. Gag.
We need pictures of the monkeys.
Sending you love, A.Di
another one that works great with competition; instead of rewarding winners (which usually costs) you go can with negative reinforcement and penalize losers with aerobics and whatnot. But you can`t spend too much time with it or the boss may get suspicious, and some lazy kids might go I DONT WANNA, and ruin the fun. I didn`t have that problem with the 5 kids I had.
ReplyDeleteJumping jacks are alright, but we had the most fun watching and laughing when I came up with, The chicken. Losers jump around the edge of the room on one leg and flap their elbows, como un pollo. how I wish I had a video of that.