The Day of Love

One of my grade 8s left me this present
on my chalkboard. In addition to the
message, it's everything I've taught
them in ICT!

Valentine's Day is a big deal here. Like huge. I began to notice something was up the day before, when the atmosphere at school was reminiscent of a sunny, warm, day-before-vacation type school day. You know, the type where everyone is happy and full of energy but no one can focus on school work? It was like that, and I had no idea why- it was a Wednesday for crying out loud! Anyway, I had also seen several students making Valentine's Day cards (usually during class) and just figured they were making them for friends, since you can exactly go to the store and get a box of 24 Valentines/lollipop combos featuring whatever movie star is in this year. I also knew that a group of students were planning some sort of show or something, because the faculty adviser had mentioned it at staff meeting and reminded everyone to wear red, but I had no idea what to expect. So Thursday I show up to school, wearing my the only red I own, and find out that in all liklihood, we be ending school at 12:30 in order to fit the entire show in before dinner time. Well, okay.

12:30 rolls around and I hadn't heard anything more so I just planned to keep teaching. Just as I got everything set up for my ICT class, the bell rang announcing the end of lessons. We all congregated outside the library where a makeshift stage/runway had been set up using teacher desks. Chairs were brought out of classrooms and set up under the two trees (the only relief from the burning sun) and the entire school crowded in the patches of shade. Basically the show was a beauty contest/talent show. Five girls (all learners of mine actually) were contestants hoping to be crowned Miss Valentine, in a contest that included swimwear, casual wear, cultural wear, formal wear, and a question round. In between each round, there were performances from other students, from dancing, to skits, to cultural performances, even an "eating an apple off a string" contest. The whole show was very entertaining and lots of fun to watch. I took literally hundreds of photos (mostly of the cultural dances) and just sat in awe of the whole thing.

Although many people at home know my feelings on the patriarchy of beauty pageants  I also couldn't help but smile as I saw my girls strutting their stuff around the runway. They were so cute and fierce and I was proud. (Don't worry Kell, I was still hiding a small look of disgust during the swimsuit round).

Some of the cards from
my learners

As they were tallying the points, a few older students got on stage and started handing out Valentine's Cards that people had submitted.  It was certainly not an efficient way of doing things, but hey, TIA. My name got called multiple times and I received quite a few adorable cards from some of my learners. They got all out on these too. Hand drawn/stenciled, colored, and with very nice, Hallmark like tidings inside. It's actually a little funny to read some of the phrases, because between the sentiment of the holiday, and their broken English, there are some priceless gems. Just to give you an example: "Vallentine's day is a day of love were we celebrate the day of love were we give each other flowers and other things and I choose you to be my Vallentine's Friends" and "Dear my teacher friend, I inform you that I am ready to receive any valentine gift such as card and anything that you wish to give me. Do it with happiness." Pretty hilarious haha.

About to crown the winners!

Soon the votes were counted, and in the end, one of my grade 8s, Olivia, won the title. Her smile when she was crowned was probably the most adorable thing I've ever seen. Unfortunately my camera battery died of exhaustion just as they were crowing her. Of course. I told the girls that if they wore their crowns and sashes to school the next day, I would take more pictures then. On Friday, true to my word, I brought my recharged camera to school and after the final bell rang, I stayed behind with the girls and some other learners who wanted to take pictures/see the ones I had taken the day before. After taking pictures of every possible combination of the contestants/other learners in the room, I turned the camera off and everyone huddled around my laptop to look at the pictures from the show. Let me tell you, having 15 learners all climbing on each other trying to see a computer screen made for a very sweaty half hour of going through the photos. When they had all been seen, I announced that I had to go and most learners left, but a few girls lingered behind and asked if they see the webcam work. Well since they had remembered the term from ICT class, I couldn't say no, so the three girls and I spent the next twenty minutes taking ridiculous selfies with my webcam and had fun playing with all the funny filters/effects. When four o'clock rolled around I insisted that I really did have to get going, and they probably did too! (Remember, some have a two hour walk ahead of them to get home).

So to sum it all up, Valentine's Day here is sort of the bomb.

If you want to see more pictures, here's the link to the facebook album.
and here's the link to the album with more pictures from Epupa.
Enjoy!

First Week of School

I have been in Onamutai for over a week now, and have successfully completed my first week of school! So much has happened over the past week, I may make it two blog posts...

On Monday, I reported for my second day of school and was anxious to hopefully meet my learners. When I arrived, we had the morning meeting, and I was asked if I would go with my principal, another teacher and 12 learners to the region's Welcome Back Luncheon in Oshakati. This meant that I wouldn't be at the school all day, but since my timetable wasn't ready yet, that didn't really matter. To get to the lunch, the 12 learners crammed in the back of the principles bakkie and the three adults squeezed in the front. I had a mild panic attack when the kids just climbed in the truck- no attendance, no counting, nothing. I couldn't help but think of camp and how that would SO not fly. Well, T.I.A. The lunch turned out to be lots of speeches about the performance of various schools during the previous year. It was pretty long and hot since we were outside, but we were under a tent at least. There were some really cool cultural performances that I enjoyed watching, and I got to see two of the other volunteers who were also attending with their principals. It was also really interesting to listen to the conversations amongst teachers after the speeches. They were virtually identical to conversations amongst teachers in the States: unrealistic expectations from the government,  unfair performance measures, factors out of the teacher's control, etc. I suppose some things are universal.

On Tuesday I finally received my schedule: two sections of 9th grade math, two sections of 8th grade physical science, two sections of 9th grade ICT (Information and Computer Technology) and 4 sections of 8th grade ICT. Woah, definitely not mostly math. Oh well, here we go! I had the first period off, which was nice because I was able to get to my room and have some time to prepare for my first classes. The day was mostly going to be introductions and setting up of expectations. My first class, 9C math, came in and I realized immediately that the first thing I'm going to have to get used to is them all standing until someone tell's them to sit. Then I discovered there weren't enough chairs (school-wide shortage) so several learners had to go and get some from another room. This is something else that will consistently eat into the already short 45 minute periods. Once everyone was seated at a desk, I introduced myself and then went around to record names on a seating chart. This took much longer than expected. First, they speak so quietly that I had to make my way around the crowded room and lean in to each learner just to hear them. Secondly, I couldn't pronounce half their names. I thought Taunton had some interesting names, but those were nothing: here, I have several learners named Ndnilimekwe. It was also hard because they sometimes say their last names first, and many of them have nicknames. Some of the nicknames are American sounding names, but others are clearly made up, like "Gatuzo" (I promise, that's nothing like his actual name, and all the kids laughed when he said it.) I don't have a class list to compare them too either, so it could be a confusing year! After finally getting names, I went over some expectations of class and by that point, class was over. My next class was my other grade 9 math class, and the process went almost the same. Next I had my first section of grade 8 science, and as the learners entered the room, my heart warmed a little and I started beaming. I don't know what it is, but something about middle schoolers just makes me smile, and it was a really nice reassurance that this was true even on the other side of the world. I have definitely chosen the right age group for my career. The rest of the day went pretty much like the first two periods. Lots of introductions and new names. On my off periods, I was running around trying to get some information about how to set up my files, where I will be teaching ICT (since another teacher uses the lab), and where I could get some textbooks. It's all a little overwhelming, and definitely took some patience, but I made it to the end of my first real day and went home to collapse on my bed, exhausted.

At this point, I had a mild panic attack about how on earth I was going to be able to teach science with virtually no materials, a vague syllabus, and not a clue about how to teach science. Luckily, my awesome support system at home came to the rescue and assured me that I could totally handle this, and just needed to breath and take it one day at a time. That helped me to calm down a little and sat down to plan my first lessons.

Wednesday was a mix of another set of introduction classes (with a rotating schedule, every day is different, so I had some new classes) and my first time teaching material. For my two math classes, I started with patterns, the first chapter in their book. This lesson went well, they seemed to be understanding and engaged.  I'm also psyched because I'm planning an Pascal's Triangle investigation for them that I've always wanted to do but haven't gotten a chance in my classes in the States yet. I just hope it goes well. For science, I started with the Scientific Method, which their book seemed to call the Scientific Process. I thought the lesson went well until a learner approached me at the end of class and said I confused everyone (of course no one said anything in class) because it wasn't the same as their notes from last year on the Scientific Process. It turns out, that the process is more like the various types of activities involved in science (measuring, observing, investigating, classifying etc) and not the Method that we learn. Whoops. I made a mental note to change this with my other section, and to fix it first thing when I had this section next. I then went to observe an ICT class, since I didn't really know what one should look like. The other teacher was teaching a 9th grade section during one of my free periods, so I headed over to watch. Basically the class was just a review of the parts of a computer since many of the learners hadn't touched/seen one since their ICT class last year. I instantly realized how basic the beginning lessons will be, because some of my learners, particularly the 8th graders, may literally have never seen a computer before. This is something I'm totally not used to.

For my first ICT lesson, I basically copied the other teacher and just introduced my learners to the parts of a computer. Since I didn't have the lab (we have to figure out how to share it) I just drew a picture of a computer on the board and did various listing/labeling/identifying activities with each class. This went really well, and the learners loved shouting out names of parts that I pointed to. I was super impressed with my 8A class; although most claimed they had never used a computer before, by the end of class each and every one of them was naming the parts like a pro! Maybe this will go faster than I originally thought...

Overall, the lessons go by really fast and half the time is spent trying to gauge understanding from their blank faces. They are really hesitant to answer questions, or speak to me at all really, and I can't tell if they don't understand my English, don't understand the concepts, or just don't want to answer. This will be really hard to get used to and will probably be one of my biggest challenges. However, I'm really excited for this year because the learners do seem eager to learn. I can already tell I have some brilliant kids in my classes and if I can just figure out the system (grading, assignments, lessons etc), I think I will have a pretty successful year!

Well I think that's enough for now. I'm going to put up an entire post of pictures from the past week, and I'll try to get another post up today about my weekend in town, but until then,

Peace,
Jamie

My Week as Miss Jamie

Hello there!

When I last left you, I had just finished a mentally and physically exhausting trek north. We awoke early the next morning to begin our very first day in a Namibian classroom, with no one having any idea what to expect. After a nice breakfast and lesson planning session with my teaching partner for the week, Jessie, we were ready to teach our first lesson! We decided to do a lesson on comparing Namibian and American culture, and were hoping it would be a hit.We walked over to the school to wait for the learners, and got our first glimpse of Namibian classrooms. For all my fellow teachers out there, let me just say, we are spoiled in the States. These classrooms were a disaster. The first think I noticed was the trash. It seemed as if the bell rang on the last day and everyone just walked out and closed the door behind them (I later found out that this is exactly the case). Paper, wrappers  notebooks, backpacks, ripped books, and trash were piled on the floor, on the desks, and on the shelves. Once I looked past that, there was really nothing left- a rectangle room with cement walls and cement floors, old, broken, graffiti-ed desks and chairs, a ripped and drawn-on bulletin  board on the back wall flanked by two wooden shelves, and an old chalkboard at the front. (I'm pumped for the chalkboards though, I've missed those.) Teachers here typically are the ones that rotate, so there were no decorations on the wall. They were so barren compared to even the most bare-bones classroom in the US. One thing that we discovered immediately was that the sound of metal desk/chair legs on the cement floor is the most loud and obnoxious sound we had ever heard. Any time someone moves their chair or desk even the slightest bit, the sound drowns out any other sound in the room. Hurdle number one. 

A typical Namibian classroom.

After getting our materials ready for our lessons, we went outside to greet the first learners. We had no idea of how many to expect- this was there summer vacation after all- but Bret had assured us that plenty of kids would show up. We were supposed to start at 9:30, and at 9:20 we only had about 4 kids. We waited around for a bit and once we had accumulated about 15, we started. All throughout the lessons, kids kept trickling in. This is apparently extremely common here, punctuality is not as important as it is in the States, and students have a difficultly with the concept of time, so tardiness is rampant. Hurdle number two. 

Our first lesson went really well, and we were pleasantly surprised at how bright these kids were. Although there is obviously a language barrier, their spoken English was impressive for the most part, and we could tell  that they were all smart thinkers, even if they couldn't always articulate precisely what they wanted to say. They were also so much more respectful and eager to learn than most students in the States. I didn't once have to stop and ask students to stop talking! This may be due in large part to our role as "guest teachers" but I got the feeling that this is what they are like the majority of the time, so that will be nice. They seemed to really like our lesson on culture, and we received some very insightful thoughts from them about American culture. During one exercise, we asked them to think of foods that Americans like that Namibians don't. They three answers they came up with were sushi, crabs, and soy sauce (which explains why we couldn't find it in the store!). After the lessons were through and we said goodbye to the kids (we had about 50 by the end!) and then had our first debriefing session where we got to talk about our initial reactions to our own lessons and those of our colleagues. Our lesson received a good deal of praise from our fellow volunteers, and one of the other career teachers in the group complimented me on my cold calling technique, which was very nice to hear.

Because of the success of our lesson and Jessie and I decided to continue with that theme for the remainder of the week. We had students talk about their dream jobs and make their own business cards, plan how to save for a vacation, and create skits in which they have to interact with people from other cultures. The learners continued to get into our lessons and Jessie and I were pleased to be getting such good feedback. It was also fun to watch everyone discover their own teacher personalities and to gain comfort in front of the classroom. I am part of such a great group, and I know we will all have a great deal of success in our classrooms.  

Thursday came all too soon and we had to say goodbye to our learners, who we had quickly become attached to. All of the volunteers had their cameras out and the learners were having a great time hamming up for us. We finished the sessions by taking group photos and jamming out to the Cupid Shuffle and Waka Waka. While we will all miss these kids, we left feeling very excited to meet our own students and start in our own classrooms. 

Jessie and me with two of our learners, Monica and Maggie.

This post is starting to get long, so I think I'll write a separate one about my out-of-school experiences of the week. Hopefully I'll get it up soon!

Till then,

Jamie