My First Full Day Teaching

So today Hayley had to go to Mbabane, so I was the one and only teacher in my classroom. She’ll be around tomorrow, but then as of Monday, the class is fully mine and I am fully theirs. (At that time I will also be moving into my very own bedroom…which I would like to add is the “the big bedroom” with a bathroom and shower in it!!!) So today went pretty well I think. I have to say that teaching these kids is not as easy as one might assume simply because they are so behind in their education and many of them do not easily grasp new concepts and ideas. Today we talked about simple and complex sentences, which a person might think is easy to understand. I mean you are really just combining Michael went to the station. He missed the bus. into one sentence by adding but, and, or, because, etc. Seems easy enough to understand, but wow, apparently not. Actually after a while most of the kids did understand it, but I was surprised at how they kept thinking that I was speaking only one sentence when I was speaking two (with a very evident, long pause in between sentences!) So my point is, I have my work cut out for me. I really enjoy teaching though. It’s difficult…sometimes I just don’t know what else to say to try and make them understand. Like with percentages, wow, they really struggle with understanding. It’s hard without manipulatives because these are abstract concepts and need to be really shown and explored for better understanding. Ya know? Anyway, the kids are awesome and they really try hard and work well without complaint, so that in itself is a beautiful thing.
It’s a perfect day outside and shortly I will make the long hike down/up to the office (walk down the hilly street, then up another) to post this and send emails. Because the office is on a pay by the minute dial up plan (this is the only option, but I’m thinking that’s pretty good for Bulembu anyway) we must write all of our emails and such beforehand and save them onto a flash disk-then take them in and send them. At that point I must copy and paste all of my new emails into a document to save it onto the flash disk so I can bring them home to read. It’s a process. Everything is a process, but it’s cool. It’s not a hurry up rush rush world here, so you can take time to do things.
Thanks for reading.