The art of teaching..

This week has been so fun as far as teaching goes! The class has dwindled a little since testing is over. We usually have 40 students, but on Monday and Tuesday we had 24. Today we had 16 students. It is definitely easier to manage all the students when there is less of them. I have so much respect for the teachers at Emafini just for being able to handle that many students at one time. I got confused often when I had to take them to the bathroom. There was no way for me to keep track of all the students! This week we have taught the whole day. We usually only teach math, and literacy because like skills is taught in Xhosa.  Here is a wrap up of what we've done this week.

Monday- We read a book called Mup's days of the week and had the students arrange the days of week in the correct order. When they were arranged we had them figure out what day's of the week Mup did certain activities. We discussed the activities, and that led to us teaching about action and descriptive words. We had the students act out the different actions that Mup went through during the week. When we introduced descriptive words the students had trouble understanding the concept. I had them describe different animals and made a list of the words on the board. They described lions as big, mean, loud, and brown. After we made several lists, the students still could not tell us an example of a descriptive word. This could've been from misunderstanding or the language barrier. After our break, we sung the songs Hokey Pokey, If You're Happy and You Know It, and The Wheels on the Bus. We let different students lead each time.


Tuesday- We did a review on Mup's days of the week. We then reviewed action and descriptive words. The students once again were to told act out different action words. This went a lot better than Monday! We had several students come to the front of the classroom to act out actions without our help. We did estimation and measurement for math. We had the students estimate the length of their name tags and desk. After they made an estimate, we had them measure with bottle caps. The bottle caps are the only math manipulatives they have in their classroom. In the beginning, most students tried to measure their whole desk, but we quickly reiterated the directions. We had the estimations written on the board, so Gareth made a chart with the actual measurements and we compared the two. There were still a few that we had  to go around and help. We then had the students estimate and then measure their heights by using their own feet. After break we did the calendar songs (month of the year, days of the week), The Wheels on the Bus, and their FAVORITE Hokey Pokey!


Wednesday- We tried buddy reading, and it went GREAT. We had Chelsea's fifth graders help or second graders read in English and Xhosa. I was honestly shocked at how well it went. I thought it would be chaotic! They did buddy reading in groups of 3 or 4. It went so well that it continued for an hour and a half. We had to let our second graders take a bathroom break and a stretch break. Students volunteered to read one of their stories aloud to the class. After we took our students back to the classroom we had a short discussion on their thoughts about buddy reading. They all liked it, and said they wanted to do it again! I think it is something that they should look into doing at Emafini. After the break, we had them practice their directional words by making a beat in a circle on the floor.

Thursday- We had a break from teaching to go observe at other schools. It helped open my eyes a little more about the past of South Africa. I will save this topic for another blog.

Friday- Today we only had 3 students in our classroom, so we decided to combine classes. We still didn't have a lot of students, so we decided to make it a fun day. We stayed outside and played different games with them. We did a relay race and played leap frog, follow the leader, telephone, love tunnel, and red light/green light. We also played a game in Xhosa. We took them inside and played smiley face man(aka hangman). It was sad when we left today because we don't know who we will see next week. We gave them hugs and told them we would see them on Monday, but we know that they more than likely will not be there. It was really sad. One student who hugs me everyday gave me her picture and address on the back! I promised to write her and send her a picture.

Animals from Addo Elephant Park

Weekend: short, but a lot of fun!

Aghhh. The weekend always bring so much! After the long day Friday of visiting the homes we ended it by having a brie(cookout) at our principal's house. It was a lot of fun. I ate lamb, which was very tasty. It was good to be around our partnership teachers outside of school and learn more about then. We danced all night!!

Saturday- we visited Addo Elephant National Park. I was so ecstatic when I saw the lion just laying down in the grass. Our tour guide told us he hadn't seen the lion in months, until a couple of weeks ago. We saw all types of animals. The birds that we saw were so beautiful. It's amazing how close the animals can get to you. I really like that they were free to roam around. Not once did I feel like I would be harmed. Seeing animals in their natural environment is definitely a big change from seeing them in a zoo. The scenery in the park was absolutely gorgeous! I can see why it is a National Park. Also, the food that they served was delicious. I've been sticking to the same thing most places, but everywhere I go it tastes different.


Sunday- It was a very early morning on Sunday. All of the girls in the group did a walk/run 5k. Four of us walked and the other two ran. Walking was a bad choice on my part. I'm not a fast walker, so I should've done the run so that I could've had a choice. I still enjoyed it though! When we got back to our B&B (bed and breakfast) the power was off! So most of us just took a nap while our  power problem got worked out. After the nap, we had dinner and started planning for this week.

Tears of a stranger

Tears. My tears come down my face when there are no words to express how I feel. I wish these were happy tears, but they are not. Today we had the opportunity to visit our students homes, it was heartbreaking. I never would have imagined that I would see what I did. All types of emotions came over. I started to question myself as a person. These students come to school everyday happy, and ready to learn. After seeing their homes, I don't know if I could be that happy everyday. The homes didn't have any stoves, refrigerators, water, showers or tubs. These are things that are just needed for everyday living, and they didn't have any of it. The toilets were on the outside of the home, they used the bucket system. They used water from a faucet, which they shared with the neighborhood. How do they eat? How do they bathe? How do they wake up with a smile on their face everyday? How are they motivated to want better? At such a young age, how do they handle that most of the people surrounding them are infected with HIV? Here I am crying over things that they aren't even complaining about. How can my tears, the tears of a stranger, help them? If they are not crying about their situation why should I? I should be more focused on ways to help them get out of the situation. There is a 30 million rand museum built right beside the slums. If there is enough money for the government to build museums I am certain that they could start helping people get out of poverty. One of the doctorate students here said "It seems like the less you have, the happier you are." I totally agree, we could have everything that we ever wanted, and still find one thing to complain about. We need to think before we act. There is someone who would be happy just to receive a glass of sanitized water, so just be grateful at all times, no matter what you are missing! We are going to figure out a way to help the families and students at our school...more info coming later.

Oh, testing..

This week has been all about testing. My students have taken a test everyday this week except Tuesday. They were tested in math, English, life skills, and reading comprehension. All of second grade at Emafini had the same testing, so to some extent you can say they were standardized. On all for of the tests the scores ranged from 2/25 to 25/25. After being there for a week, I immediately knew who would score low on the exams. In my mind I also felt like they could have done better because the classroom still had all the posters from the different subjects hanging up. Some of the students realized it, especially when they were taking their English exams. All the students who received the lower grades will still move on to the third grade.I was told it was because they are in the process of getting assigned to a special school. The problem with that is, it can take 5 years. How are they supposed to catch up when they go to the special school if they are already behind by some years? In second grade in the U.S. there is not any standardized testing, but I know they test at the end of the school year, either formally or informally. I know that teachers identify students who may need help early in the year. Most students are identified in kindergarten so that supplementary help is already provided for them. I believe this single aspect may affect the students in South Africa success rate when compared to other places. I understand that there are not enough teachers, and teachers here are not specialized in one area, but I believe something needs to be done. This is not beneficial for current or future students.

P.E.A.C.E.

Today we went to a ceremony called Peace Promoting Schools. This ceremony acknowledges different schools throughout South Africa that agrees to have different programs to promote peace. I believe there were at least 20 schools that participated in the program. The ceremony was full of speakers that were very big supporters of the Peace Program. All of the speakers were very good, but two caught my attention. One of the speakers had us play a game about colors, according to our table. This caught my attention because at the end of the game she played a song that gave directions to people that sat at tables with certain colors. It gave me an idea of how could introduce colors in my own future classroom. The other speaker caught my attention by using a Time magazine article that was written about education across the world. It basically said that instead of the U.S. being ahead of the world in education we are steadily getting behind. He also goes on to say that it may be because teaching is more than just teaching now. There are so many more things that teachers are responsible for outside of teaching the students. It is now 50% teaching and 50% testing and other things. I just thought it was very interesting that even educators outside of the U.S. has began to notice all the extracurricular things teachers are required to do. He also, goes on to say that one day he wants South Africa to even be in the rankings of having a well-educated system. I believe that the PEACE program is a great way to start building up South African schools.

Weekend!

Saturday, I went to my first soccer game EVER! From what I'm told, it was between two top rivals, Bufana Bufana, and the Ivory Coast. There were 22,000 people there, and they were so pumped up for their teams. So many people showed so much support for their country. They were all dressed in yellow and green, some even painted their hair the same color. It took me a little to get into the game, but it is actually interesting. The game ended in a tie which was shocking to me because in other sports they usually want to see who would be the winner. After the game, there were people singing in a circle and two of my friends joined them. It was quite hysterical especially after learning that they were singing about the Bafana team not having their best players on the field. The coach was afraid that they may get hurt and not be able to play in some big game that they have coming up.  The spirit of the game was still lingering a while after it was over. Soccer in Africa is like football in America, except the fans are very good sports. I didn’t see any arguing.

Today, I went to church at Lighthouse Family Church. I didn’t know what to expect by going to a church in a different country, but it actually reminded me of a church in Wilmington. I enjoyed the music a lot. It was hard for me to understand everything the Pastor was saying, but the message was about avoiding opposition. Afterwards, we found out that the church is involved with an orphanage and there is a possibility that we may be able to go and visit the children there. I’m very excited about this because one day I would love to adopt a child of my own. I just want to give them the love that no one else wanted to give to them. Every child deserves to be loved, and while I can’t personally take care of every child I meet, it is good to help in some way.