as easy as A, B, C,

Teaching in Uganda has been challenging and rewarding all at the same time. The boys at the boys home are very eager to learn, although sometimes they are very bad at focusing and listening! But I get many notes from them each week that I am out at the land thanking me for teaching them. They are so sweet.  Here are some things I have learnt over the last month as I have experienced my first cross-cultural teaching.

 

 

The first thing I realised was that the school systems here seem to operate very much on rote memory. I had been told this, but discovered it for myself when I sat on a few classes at the boys school. They have little blue exercise books that are filled with line paper. They have pencils and pens. The teacher has chalk and a chalkboard. And that is about it. The teacher writes on the board and the students copy. The boys have become very good at coping information. Most of them have amazing printing! But often this type of copying comes without really understanding what is being taught. There is really nothing overly creative in class.

I comes as no surprise then that they really struggle in this area. I am still trying to figure out how to get them to exercise their creativeness in out Saturday class because they are most comfortable simply copying answers. My first lesson bombed (at least I felt like it did) largely because I was trying to get them to be more creative than they were used to (or able to do at this point...).  So I have been trying to have a mix of copying and getting them to put their own creative twist on it. My ideal would be to get them to a higher level of learning, but I think that is a lofty goal considering the short amount of time I am here.There is really a need for the boys to be able to grow their creativeness, problem solving, and critical thinking skills.

About six of the boys are in primary 1 and 2. Non of them can read very well but they have been progressing quite well (thank you Meme for the Bob books! One of the boys in P.2 is named Bob which everyone things is hilarious).  I have noticed that they do not learn their alphabet phonetically. Few of them know their letter sounds (we have been working on this) and do not have the ability to sound out new words. They memorise words as a whole. For example one of the boys when he sees a word that ends in "g" often thinks it is dog even though it could be something like "big." Dog is the word he has memorised so that is what he associated "g" to.  I have been trying to come up with easy reading games so that they have to actually sound out the word, not just memorise it.

We are hoping to be able to start homeschooling the boys that are in the lowest grades soon because they are so far behind and get quite discouraged. With more support they could progress so much faster! So this is in the works. API is looking to hire an Ugandan teacher and I would work as a support teacher with the boys. I have been told part of my job is to bring more creative teaching ideas into the class. If all works out we would start this in the middle of April.  This will be an adjustment to my schedule as I would be out at the land five days a week instead of three. It would also mean that I am not at street program as much. I have started helping out on Sunday with a Sundayschool program (and lunch) for the street kids.
 
Probably the biggest things I have realized is that you have to be super flexable in Africa. Things seldom start when you think they will, or go how you planned!! But somehow it all works out in the end. The trick is to go with it and enjoy it despite the feeling of caos that is sometimes so strong!