Ms. Mzungu: The Top 5 Things I Learned About Teaching This Week

1. Learning is so much more meaningful when it is student-led.

For each unit in science– for example, birds or mammals, I go to the library and find as many books as I can about that topic. I was having trouble finding one about fish, though, so I asked a student, Masereka Benet, to help me. He tried for a few minutes before exclaiming, “But ah! It is too messy here!” Benet was recently elected the Academic Prefect, which means he’s in charge of the library, but he just then realized that the library was a disaster. He decided that we should organize it.

The last P6 teacher from UW (hey Angela!) had her class arrange the library by creating color-coded labels. They learned about literature genres and alphabetizing. They did a great job. The only problem was that the rest of the school did not follow their system. So books were haphazardly thrown everywhere. The curriculum I’m covering this term does not include these topics and I don’t have time to fit something extra in, and I literally could not fit all of my class in the library, so I didn’t want to take on the project as a class. But I was glad that Benet raised a concern and decided to do something about it, so I pledged to help him during our lunch and games time.

Re-vamped library with the prefect's new rules

Benet & Kato chillin'

Mumbere Hanlord and Kule Christopher joined our team, and other students helped along the way. It was great to see students sweeping, organizing, and devising plans by their own initiative. We tackled several problems– younger students didn’t know how to properly put books away, new books didn’t have labels, space is limited– and each step of the way, I asked them questions instead of telling them what to do.

The results were great. We found some baskets and labeled them according to the sections. This way, young students only have to match the color on the book to the color on the basket. We created new labels for the unlabeled books and are just waiting on tape to put them on (the school didn’t have tape). We posted the rules publicly and are planning an assembly to educate the whole school on how to use the system.

I’m so proud of these kids’ efforts and I’m glad we had all that time to spend together!

Christopher & Deborah

Makin' labels

Another great example of this is my English curriculum. Last week, I started reading The Giver as a context for debating. The Giver is about a community that has a lot of rules, some of which have really negative consequences for the individual, and I wanted my students to consider this content as a way of exploring ways of thinking outside of their own communities. I was planning on debating whether the rules concerning lying, uniqueness, choice, and risk were just or not. But the unit got off to a rocky start. Enoch came to observe the first lesson, in which I stupidly planned to model discussion and then have them discuss after reading an entire chapter out loud. My thought was that the first chapter would give them an adequate introduction, and that if I went any slower than that, I would never get through all 23 chapters. I didn’t have the money to make copies of the chapters, and I only had one copy of the book. How else would I do it?

But the kids were confused, falling asleep, and uninterested. Enoch was correct in pointing out that the text was difficult for the kids to follow. So the next day, I tried breaking the 2^nd and 3^rd chapters up, with activities in between, and re-phrased a lot of the book to simpler language. I just felt too strongly that the students were not exposed to enough literature and the content was needed. But after a few failed activities, and a student asking me if they could read it instead of me because they couldn’t understand me, I decided to give up.

This happened to perfectly coincide with a spontaneous debate erupting in my classroom. Towards the end of a failing activity–a sinking ship– some students started debating whether lying was always wrong or not. The debate was a little superficial, but genuine, so I let it continue. Two camps emerged: lying is a sin, and lying can’t always be a sin. When it felt like it was hitting a dead end, I threw out the idea that sometimes people lie to save another’s life. I gave the example of an armed man asking where an innocent person was so he could kill them. The ensuing conversation was sophisticated and passionate.

The next day, I asked students to show me their normal debate format, because they usually debated quite frequently during the school’s “social development” time every Friday, and they seemed to enjoy debating. They organized everything themselves, choosing leaders and speakers. But their discussion was lackluster and boring. The chairperson chose members of the audience to speak at random instead of when the members wanted to express their opinions. Afterwards, I asked the students to compare the debate from the previous day to this debate. There was an overwhelming push to return to yesterday’s format because it was more fun.

But I raised the issue of participation; while about 20 students were really engaged, the 14 others did not speak at all, and some were doing other work. So they suggested having a speaking order. But then, I pointed out, it would not flow like a conversation, and people would be forced to speak when they had nothing to say. When the students were stumped, I suggested the format of “inside/outside.”

Inside/outside is when you have an inner circle of students debating while an outer circle watches. After time is called, they switch. Except I added that we cannot switch until everyone in the middle has spoken at least once (I plan on boosting it up to twice, three times, etc. as time goes on). I also had to split the class into 4 groups because of the size. This format worked BEAUTIFULLY. They debated the classic Heinz Dilemma, with a few details changed, in groups of about 8. The quiet ones felt comfortable enough to speak, and the loud ones were forced to let others have a turn.

And all of this happened because the students took control.

2. Getting to know your students can’t wait.

It’s been really difficult for me to build relationships with my students. I usually am able to bond with my students using sarcasm, a common TV show, or an agreement that the way school is taught is boring. But I don’t have any of that here. Using any sort of slang is out of the question; students didn’t even know what “hi” was. I have no common interests with them, and I already know that most of their interests include football and netball, because there isn’t much else here. I also do not have a consistent time to play morning meeting games. I’m running out of time to cover the curriculum anyways.

But I realized that you can’t wait to get to know students. You can’t assume that it will come in time. Because next thing you know, you’ll be halfway through your time with them. And your ignorance of their lives will affect their learning now. If they don’t feel comfortable enough to share that they have malaria, or were sent home for not having shoes, you will not understand their seemingly irrational behavior and will be unjustly mad at them. And if you don’t know how they think, what they want, and what they’re capable of, you will not understand the work they turn in as well as you could. If you don’t watch the girls play their surprisingly violent ball game, you won’t know that they are actually very strong women, not passive, quiet girls. If you do not visit their dormitory and watch them tend to younger students, you will not know what is really expected of them.

The girls' dormitory

Biira Bridget, Mawa Deborah & Sarah Sanyu hanging out during lunch

Sharing posho & beans

Bridget wanted a photo of me eating posho haha

If you don’t start having conversations with them, you won’t get the joy of talking about starfish, career aspirations, swear words, seasons, contraception (that was a funny conversation), two-story houses, and scuba diving.

And you wouldn't be able to hang out with these cuties.

3. Organization is key.

I love America for having planning time within the school day. I will never take that for granted. It has been so difficult to plan on my own time. In fact, I have no “my own time,” apart from the trips we have planned. That and a schedule that remains the same every day would be really nice. But it all comes down to resources; they can’t make it that way, because they’re understaffed and lacking funds. They also lack resources for me to use to take attendance and plan lessons, and for a space for me to use. So due to all of this, I’ve felt really disorganized, which makes it difficult to teach. I can’t establish the routines I want to, and I can’t always easily find what I need.

The rest of organization, though, falls on my own shoulders. I need to find a good grading system that shows actual learning but is accessible, intentionally make time to accomplish my goals, and have a place for note-taking. All of this is hard to navigate for the first time, and it affects my teaching a lot.

4. It’s necessary to have structured ways for students to demonstrate learning.

Students here are not used to demonstrating knowledge in ways other than tests and rigid writing activities. Therefore it has been really hard for me to gauge their content mastery with novel activities. I’ve found that I have to think very critically about how to test to make sure I’m not adding an element that has not been taught. For example, what if I ask them to brainstorm something, but they do not know how to have productive group discussions? The skill has to be taught as well as the content. I also have had to teach how to ask a good clarifying question if they don’t understand me, because they will just say “teacher, I have not understood” (which is an improvement from the beginning), but not which part they didn’t get. I have also discovered the need for structured, mutually comprehensible ways of getting and giving feedback.

5. Establishing your educational intentions helps.

Students aren’t able to read your mind and guess why you’re doing what you’re doing. They won’t always know that you teach differently from another teacher on purpose. I’ve found that stating my philosophy openly and honestly is easier than being cryptic or not addressing it at all. It’s easier to establish that you have different expectations and then keep those as a reference point.

So, in sum, this week of teaching was much better than the last 3. I still made many mistakes and had many frustrating things happen, but I was able to handle them a lot better with the new relationships with my students.

Thanks for reading!