This morning was pretty horrific for me. I had just woken up (so I was still
laying in my bed) and was skyping with Nick when all of a sudden a cockroach
ran over my computer screen. So
naturally, I screamed bloody murder and ran out of the bed to grab the Doom
(cockroach spray). I killed the
cockroach and then tried to recuperate from my tragic experience (I am still trying
to get over it two weeks later).
Before I left my neighbors encouraged me to think of my mosquito net
over my bed as the set-up for a princess bed, which I did up until now, because
I’m sure princesses do not share their beds with cockroaches. Sigh.
After being on edge from the cockroach in my bed, I started
teaching only to notice a lizard above my head in the classroom. Oh boy, today was going to be a long
one. Anyways, the math lesson I
taught today went well, and I was able to see the students starting to warm up
to me. Later in the day I taught
English and was observed by Enoch.
The lesson itself went very well up until it came time for the students
to work in their exercise books. I
have made the decision that when I check the students’ work in their exercise
books, that I will meet with them one-on-one to do so. This allows me to check-in with each
student and see how they’re doing, as well as it allows me the opportunity to
build relationships with every student in the class. Well as I was going around checking my students’ work,
student after student seemed to be totally lost. I had asked the students to be rather creative, and come up
with their own sentences telling me what they do during the different parts of
the day. The problem was that the
students at Rwentutu are never given the opportunity to think on their own or
to be creative, but rather they always follow a set-in-stone sentence structure
or pattern given to them by the teacher. So the task that I gave them to
complete was too difficult. I was
feeling quite defeated after seeing my students struggle through the
activity.
I expressed these concerns with Enoch as well as some others
I had at this point. He not only
made me feel better about these things, but he also thought my lesson went
really well. He gave me several
compliments, but the most important one to me was that he said he could tell I
care about my students. He said
this was evident as I knew all of the students’ names already and because I
spent time working with each child.
As is how teaching works, I will take the things that Enoch told me and
my own personal reflections from my lesson to help me plan my lessons for
tomorrow.
The problem I experienced today, with the students unable to
write simple sentences was my first encounter with what Dr. Gillian warned us
about, letting the curriculum bring you down. The reason that students aren’t provided with opportunities
to be creative in their writing or in anything they do, is because creativity
is not something that is tested on the national exams. This was one of the concerns I
expressed to Enoch. I wanted to
know if I should be going back and teaching the basics such simple sentence
structure, letter sounds, number recognition, and so on, or if I am just
supposed to stick to the curriculum and ignore the fundamentals to reading,
writing and math. Enoch encouraged
me to do what I thought the kids needed; however, he still stressed that the
curriculum needs to be taught. So
I am going to try my best to incorporate the basics and fundamentals into the
curriculum that I am required to teach.
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