The
first week of school is over. Considering that there are 100 school days in the
first semester, that means that I am 5% done until winter vacation. Is it bad
that I’m already thinking about vacation? So far, A has about 50 students,
including my oldest ausi. The first thing I tried to each them was how to take
notes. I had to tell them like five times to get their notebooks out of their
backpacks, open them, and write. They really don’t understand much of any
English, which is frustrating. The primary schools are supposed to start
teaching only in English at some point, but obviously that doesn’t happen. I
don’t know if it’s the fact that I have a weird accent to them or that it’s all
English instead of mostly Sesotho with a smattering of English or that they’re
new to high school, but hopefully they will get into a rhythm. The other thing
they’re not used to is asking questions when they don’t understand. Every time
I ask if they get it, they automatically respond, “Yes, teacher.” I think if I
said some jibberish like “whale toenails are a formidable precipitation in
Mongolian chloroplasts. Understand?” They would say, “Yes, teacher” in a
choir-like response. This is just what they are taught to do in primary school.
If they don’t understand or if they get an answer wrong, they are normally
stick-whacked by the teacher. It’s funny that they call me and the other
teachers “Teacher” because I distinctly remember that when I was little, my
teachers would get mad if someone called them teacher instead of their name.
I am
getting conflicting information on the homework front. The other math teacher
said that I should give homework every day because the kids go home and do
nothing, but another PCV I talked to says he rarely gives homework because a
lot of the students walk for hours to get home, then they have chores, then
they have neither the light nor the tables nor the time to do homework. So I’m
trying to find a balance for now. I’m thinking homework twice a week and a
weekly quiz on Fridays.
Absolutely
the most annoying and time-sucking part of class is checking classwork. I’ll
give them a few problems to do in their notebooks, and every single kid needs a
red checkmark in their notebook saying that it’s correct. I made the mistake of
using my blue pen to check work and my ausi told me that she needs me to use a
red pen. The kids bring their notebooks home to their parents, and the parents
look for the red checks to make sure that the kids are doing well or whatever.
So in summary, these kids live for red checks. I figured out that I could bring
a bunch of red pens and give them to the students who finish first, then they
could go around and check other people’s work for me. I also figured out that I
can get a smart one to explain something to the class in Sesotho so that they
might at least halfway understand better. The way that they “learn” is by
copying exactly the words on the board and then memorizing these strings of
words. They don’t really understand the actual meaning to well, I think. My
ausi was practicing some history definitions, and she can tell me what an
archaeologist is in terms of some other big words that she doesn’t know, but
I’m sure she doesn’t really understand. Their tests are like that, too. What is
______? And then they fill in the blank with the exact phrases that have been drilled
into their skulls. We’re gonna have to work on that, slowly of course.
Form A
computer was hilarious. The first class, none of the computers were set up
(again, lack of preparation), so I just went into the classroom and drew a
computer, a screen, a keyboard, and a mouse, and sort of taught them those
words and verbs like click and type. For the second class of the week, I
actually went in ahead of time and set up the computers. If it hadn’t have been
me, I don’t think the computers would even be set up yet, even though there are
two other teachers who teach computer. Because there was some situation with
one of the Form A students, I took all of them into the computer lab where
normally I would just take the ones who have paid the M300 computer fee. So
here are like 50 students all cramped around like 12 computers. I stood on a
chair to get their attention, not knowing it only had 3 legs, and I fell
straight on my butt. The computer lab also serves as staff room to two of the
teachers and storage room for chairs and desks that need to be repaired. I got
up, ain’t no thang, and found a four legged chair on which to give my
instructions. I told them to turn it on, find Microsoft word, open it, type the
alphabet and their names, save the document, and shut it down. That took the
entire 40 minute time slot. A lot of them were looking a little scared to even
touch the computer, as most of them had never used on before.
Form C
is the best by far. I only have to act as their “spirit guide,” as one of my friends
called it, and teach them life skills. Their English is much better, and one of
them was even bold enough to tell me that I was speaking too fast for them to
understand. That would have never happened in form A. I kind of asked them what
they wanted to do career-wise, and a lot of them are quite ambitious, wanting
to get out of this village and do things like be accountants, nurses, and
teachers. I also started an anonymous question jar where they can ask anything,
so I think that will help me both fill some of the extra time and help me come
up with new lessons.
Lunches
are pretty good. In order, this week we had samp, papa and peas, papa and
moroho and an egg, papa and moroho, and papa and beans. So much papa, but it’s
really not bad food. I’m sure I’ll get sick of it sooner or later, but for now
it’s nice to have a hot meal that I didn’t have to cook. There are two girls
who are assigned to serve the teachers their lunch and then wash the dishes
afterward. The kids bring plates or Tupperware containers and line up outside
the kitchen to get lunch. On Fridays, the students clean and work around the
school, sweeping and mopping all the floors, cutting the tall grass (the girls
braided the cut grass into a rope and played jump rope with it), weeding the
gardens, cutting trees for firewood, and things of that nature. The kids are
always well-behaved in that they do what needs to be done (unless it’s taking
notes…).
When I
don’t have class, there is a lot of down time, so when I finish planning for
the next lesson, I mostly read. It gets pretty boring. I’m probably the one who
uses the library the most. I’m sure some of the kids don’t even know that’s
what that room is for. I’m getting along with the other teachers well, but I
don’t talk to them a lot, mostly because they’re talking to each other in
Sesotho. Overall, the moral of this story is that I survived the first week
mostly intact except for a nice purple bruise on my butt from that deceitful
chair.
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