It's almost hard to believe that I haven't always been a teacher. It's by far the hardest thing that I have ever done, but it has also been by far the most rewarding. 5 weeks ago, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing; now, I have a bit of an idea at least and have been working hard to make the most of my short time here.
It has been fun figuring out how to challenge the children and get them to think beyond the standard practice of simply parroting the teacher and copying what's on the board into their notebooks. I've discovered that they actually like to be pushed hard. When they finish their math assignments, I'll give them extra, increasingly hard problems, and they'll keep coming back for more. They'll even scrounge around for extra paper so I can make them problem sets to take home. Instead of just copying a story off the board, I'll ask them to think of what happens next and to share it with the class. To encourage the kids to pay attention and participate in class, I'll throw bits of trivia into the class presentation - Ben Franklin flying a kite and key into a cloud to discover electricity, 'shovel' as a synonym for 'spade', or the saying "sweet dreams" that we use before going to bed. The kids who pay attention and remember the trivia, get stickers. I also give stickers for 100%, and there have been quite a few proud kids who have shown them off to their Tanzania teachers. I've also tried to make learning vocabulary like 'fever' fun by creating a "hot and cold" song and dance. The kids love to sing and dance - I've got some great videos to share once I'm home.
Besides actual teaching instruction, I've introduced a number of games that American school children love. Some are purely for fun while others offer a bit of education at the same time. Tic-Tac-Toe was a huge hit right off the bat although the strategy has been tough for some of the kids to pick up, and Simon Says was perfect for teaching the kids the English words for various body parts. Otherwise, classics like Heads Up - Seven Up, Red Rover, and Duck - Duck - Goose have become playtime favorites.
Thanks to help from one of the teachers, I've been able to form a reading group with six children from first and second grade. These children are at the bottom of their grades and basically can't read. I've put together daily reading lessons that another volunteer teacher and I have been using to tutor them. It has been a real emotional roller coaster. One minute, they can read "fat, sat, cat" and the next minute they will seem to have entirely forgotten. They can't even read basic words like "the" or "on" without constant review and repetition. Bright, who was the first boy to read a word for me, is picking it up quickly - he can rapidly read lists of rhyming words once he learns the rhyme; he can turn "at" to "cat" and "sat" and "et" to "pet" and "get." But he'll forget the rhyme because he doesn't remember the sounds the vowels make. A boy in second grade, George, read his first sentence the other day and was beaming with pride. He forgot it the next day, but got it faster the second time. So, we go at it, day after day, making a little bit of progress, sliding back, and then moving forward again.
The kids in tutoring and all of the other children love books - literally clamoring for the few that I bring out at lunch time. Thanks to the kind donations that have been made so far, I've been able to buy a variety of books that I am very excited to donate to the school. The donations are greatly appreciated (if you are even thinking about donating, please do, it means so much to me and these kids)....I have so much more to do to get the library started in such a short time, but I'm determined to get it done.
There is nothing like hearing an excited chorus of "Teacha! Teacha!" every morning and being greeted with hugs and kisses and High Fives. Nothing like it except that look on a child's face when he realizes that he can read and that someone cares.
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