Madame

I am now called Madame Nichole. It’s adorable, and so fantastically French.

some sort of assembly happening before school

the school yard, rarely empty

So, I’ve finished a full week of teaching. Monday feels worlds apart from now and I’m unsure of how to explain everything that’s happened. I feel as though I’ve done and learned more in this week than I have in the last two semesters combined. In practicum, I’d spend a lot of time planning a lesson, which I’d type up and prove how it met certain standards and helped meet every learner’s needs, so on and so forth. I had the time to plan a perfect lesson, but it usually didn’t go perfectly, and I usually wouldn’t get the opportunity to do much follow up. I couldn’t plan whole units and work to achieve long-term goals like developing students’ critical thinking or writing skills.

Here, I basically have two subjects until the beginning of April. All mine. I have to fill out what they call a “Scheme of Work” book, and my co-teachers will make sure that I’ve filled it out, with my learning objectives, comments, etc., but no one demands to see my lesson plans or limits what I can do. In a way, it’s a little frightening that no one is really checking, but the freedom feels so good. I have to follow the curriculum, but I can do it however I want! Of course, King James (the headmaster) and Erasto (the head teacher) have told us to make sure students have real comprehension, that they are gaining skills as well as content knowledge, and to be resourceful and use hands-on learning as much as possible, but that’s what I wanted to do anyways.

I’ve also experienced unexpected freedom with other classroom things I’ve wanted to do. Most recently, I set up a “question bank” for science, where students can ask questions like “how do birds fly?” I went over what makes a good question, but we’ll definitely have to practice before using it. I also had them ask questions for me to send home to the 7^th grade class in Madison where I’ll be teaching when I leave. Some were boring (“do you play football?”) they eventually came up with some interesting ones that will highlight the difference between the U.S. and Uganda (“Does your school have chapel?” “Do schoolchildren shave their heads?”). I hope to set up a somewhat consistent exchange between the two groups.

A good science research question is a level 2.

I also had a discussion about rules, because I wanted to discuss the purpose of rules and establish some that were worth having. The conversation didn’t go too well, because they are all about obeying authority figures at all times, but I’ll hopefully return to it in a more structured way. I did establish expectations for me as the teacher, though, which I think was pretty revolutionary to them. These are the expectations for students:

1.     Ask if you do not understand. (I told them they need to speak up if they don’t get what I’m saying)

2.     Ask permission before leaving the room. (The kids just up and leave all the time and wander around outside, which makes it hard to tell who was there for which part of your teaching)

3.     Do not laugh at others when they are wrong. (This is a huge problem)

4.     Do not copy others’ work. (This is also a huge problem; kids will write the same exact thing because they’re used to there being one exact answer, but it doesn’t make sense when you’re asking them their opinions or gauging understanding)

5.     Always try your best.

6.     Respect the person who is talking.

Anyways, these are the topics I’ll be teaching:

For science:

Animal Classification

Sound Energy

The Human Circulatory System

For English:

Safety on the road & traffic dangers

Debating

One topic kinda sticks out, doesn’t it? Yeah, I haven’t really been liking the “safety on the road” thing. I suppose vocabulary about driving is necessary, but I’ve been really struggling with how to teach it in an interesting way. I’ve been trying to just go with it, though, and give them many opportunities to read and write, because they definitely need more of that. I was also frustrated with the science curriculum’s disconnectedness; it follows a rotating pattern, so that next term, they will study plant classification, some other kind of energy, and then another human system (I think reproductive, glad I’m not there for that…). I asked my co-teacher if I could switch the order to make more sense, but he refused, which I was a little frustrated about since they had said the curriculum was flexible. But they’re all interesting topics so I’m excited.

I’ve had so much fun planning the science lessons because I love talking about animals. I’ve tried to make the format transition from the typical lecture style to a more hands-on approach, because I knew it would be a disaster if I tried something radically different right away. I basically lectured while talking about taxonomy, vertebrates/invertebrates, and cold/warm blooded-ness, but tried to build up class participation. Then I had them play a game (where they had to decide if “all mammals are vertebrates” or “all vertebrates are mammals,”) and I had them go outside for a lesson showing them how scientists identify an animal’s Class. I was nervous that they would disregard my instructions and just take off running and hang out the whole period. But I was so pleasantly surprised to find that they were just as productive outside as they were inside. It’s often a mess if you take U.S. middle schoolers outside, and I think this is because they get so few opportunities to actually be outside. They’re cooped up and forced to be in a certain place at a certain time, obeying the authority figures at all times, learning things they don’t want to learn. While the students here are mainly test-motivated, which is extremely problematic, they do have a great work ethic. And they are used to being outside, so they don’t see it as revolutionary. They’re outside for lunch, they get plenty of time to see their friends and play and no one is hovering over them, and they’re used to learning about things they see outdoors.

Oh yeahh drawin some goatsss

Oh yeah, drawin chickens, yeahh

So it was great to learn that I can trust my students to complete assignments and behave well, and I hope to take them outside frequently. But the assignment, like all assignments I’ve given this week, did not go perfectly. Some just wrote general characteristics about the animal they observed, not the specific characteristics scientists use to determine Class. Some simply labeled their animal, spewing tons of information they’ve learned from previous grades (one labeled the vulva on a goat). The whole issue I’ve had this week is not knowing whether the students aren’t understanding me because of my accent, or they don’t know what I expect because it’s so different from the learning they’ve experienced.

Here, it’s all about examinations. They take an examination at the end of each term to make sure they’ve retained the information, which is practice for the big test at the end of P7, which determines the future of their educational careers. So students have been trained to memorize and regurgitate; a student can give you a definition word for word and not have a clue what it means. I’ve seen and heard so many examples of students jumbling up the order of a definition and then getting completely thrown off– when asked the cause of an accident, some students mis-copied “He did not realise there was a roundabout because there was no signpost to indicate it” as “He did not realise there was indicator” or something similar. I want to say to them, just think! Does it make sense? But they don’t seem to understand when I ask them questions demanding higher levels of thinking… it’s like their little robot brains are saying “does-not-compute.”

I should say that not all teachers foster this kind of mentality. My students’ social studies and math classes are usually pretty engaging, and several teachers I’ve talked with want to encourage growth in multiple areas. The headmaster, King James, talked about the issue of information-spewing with us today, and expressed his desire for us to change the way these students are learning. His words, loosely quoted, ring so true: “A student will memorize all the ways in which you can keep a toilet sanitary, tell you exactly what to do, but you will visit his home and find that he has not done any of these things; the connection is just not there.” I have students who can tell you the political history of the East African Community, but who can barely write. When I asked them to tell a short story about what their favorite thing they ever learned was, I got one or two sentences from each of them, the best being about playing netball or learning that people fly planes, the worst reading “2 Paragraphs: 1. I got sick, 2. I lacked school fees” (that one really stumped me). I told them to give a little background about where and when they learned it, and some literally wrote the date they learned a topic in school.  I’ve come to expect writing that does not reflect the true intelligence of middle schoolers, but the writing I’ve seen so far is what I’d equate to about 2^nd grade.

So I have my work cut out for me. Without projectors, the internet (although we usually have access at home), printers/copiers, enough textbooks, or really any books besides the few I can scrounge up from the school library. So far, I’ve actually manged to be pretty resourceful I think, but the issue of resources plays out in many other ways. For example, King James wants us to co-teach with our cooperating teachers, mine happen to be the headmaster’s assistant and the head teacher, so they are both very busy. Besides, we do not have any scheduled time for planning within the school day, so I must plan at home and then have them jump in when they can while I’m teaching. They don’t have the resources to pay adequate staff members, so the teachers are overloaded. As another example, one of my students missed class one day, and I found him sitting in the shade afterwards. He told me he was suffering from malaria, but there was no money for medication.

There are probably more of my students who hide their afflictions, or their misunderstandings and personalities, but I just haven’t formed a connection with them yet. That is my biggest problem right now. I have 33 students (I think… I haven’t gotten a class register yet and the room is never the same collection of faces) and they range from 9 to 16 years old (again, I think). How do I get to know 33 students in 8 weeks’ time? Especially when they barely seem to understand me; all conversations I have with them are marked by ‘what’s and awkward silences. In class, I’ll sometimes ask a question and just get a blank stare back. I’ve made some connections elsewhere in the schoolyard– on Monday, we played the most hilariously awkward version of Duck Duck Goose with and taught the macarena to a group of little ones, and I consistently read books with P4 and P5 girls– but I haven’t made much progress with my tweenagers.

King James was encouraging, though, and explained that Ugandans are not typically very open at first. Apparently they like to observe and assess the situation first. By his estimation, my students are eyeing me up and assessing me first. They want to see what I’m all about, and eventually I’ll get more letters (3 girls wrote me adorable letters), more questions, more participation, more learning, and more friendships. While he was explaining this, though, I was laughing to myself, because I realized that I’m the same way. I like to assess a situation before I enter it. I like to sit back and observe my students so I can assess their learning needs and interests before I make my move. During the first week, I’d been frustrated because I had wanted to be an unnoticed observer, but that was impossible, as a white girl, foreign in every sense. And here we were, my students and I, both wearing our poker faces, unaware that we were playing the same game. So it looks like I’ll just have to bite the bullet– I’ll have to hike up my skirt and get at that netball. I’ll have to take the giggles in stride and ask them silly questions. I’ll have to just sit with them at lunch, no matter what they think. I’ll have to constantly smile. And in terms of language, I’ll have to constantly re-phrase and re-explain and assume nothing is common knowledge.

Also, I’m considering using a fake British accent for all lessons so that they can understand me better.

flag-raising: Canada, Uganda, Wisconsin & the local kingdom