I finished teaching today at Sir Samuel Baker. The week was par for the course in terms of successes and frustrations. Grace teaches an 8:00 am class… I should say she has an 8:00 am class, but she is never on time. She will get there between 8:40 and 8:50 in the morning. Because of that, I have been working with those students on my own, which has been wonderful. However the point of this project is to work with the teacher.
Most of my frustrations have been systemic. This educational system is so different and seemingly ineffective. Students are taught and then expected to regurgitate the information; however the information is really unimportant when looking at the skills necessary to live a successful life. The teacher is also considered the expert, and any questioning is strongly discouraged. Yesterday morning, I was sitting in the teacher’s lounge, and Sharon’s partner teacher, Christine, came in and sat down beside me. I was a little confused as I thought that Sharon left for school before me, and she was not with Christine. Christine asked me, “Where is Sharon?” I replied that I was not sure as I thought she had arrived to teach. She said, “Yes, I am supposed to be teaching right now.” I asked her why she was not, and she replied, “I was not able to prepare a lesson.” I said, “So?”, and she replied, “At teacher’s college, they taught us that we should always consider ourselves the expert, and if we are not prepared to give a lesson, then we should not come to class.” I think she noticed my stunned face and continued by saying, “If we are not prepared, then we cannot be the expert in the classroom.” I said to her, “That is the exact opposite in the States. There are many classes that I have walked into without a formal lesson plan in mind, but I just wing it. For us, it is important to meet with the students whether we are truly well prepared or not.” I also told her that she was the expert simply because she was older than the kids and therefore had more life experience. However, I believe that all of this information went right out the window.
Until the educational system completely revamps itself and moves away from regurgitation of facts and moves towards critical and creative thinking, I don’t think it will create an educated society. But I wonder if this government wants an educated society because then the people may question its practices?
Today we actually continued with adjectives in S1, and to add some meaning to comparatives and superlatives, I had them write love poems. I began the lesson with Shakespeare’s Sonnet CXXX, but they had never heard of Shakespeare before, so it took some time to describe him and teach about his language. Then I had to read the poem aloud several times since there was no way to make copies and writing on the board would have taken too long. Once we discussed the poem, they were to think of someone they loved and the write 6 adjectives to describe that person. At that point, they were to create a comparative poem using those descriptions. Some wrote about their mother, father, sister, brother, Tupac, Lil’ Wayne, etc. Some also chose to write about me. One student used the following adjectives to describe me: smart, beautiful, early (I think he meant punctual), good teacher, tall and fat. I am not taking offense to the fat comment as in Uganda, it is seen as a huge compliment. It was very entertaining though. I hope that the students have liked the lessons that I have worked on. I realized through this exchange how important to me it is to provide some sort of real world connection. From what I have witness, students are not expected to make connections, so doing something as simple as writing a love poem to someone connects the use of adjectives to something as little more relevant. I hope that Grace will continue to use some of the strategies we did together, but I do not know.
Most of my frustrations have been systemic. This educational system is so different and seemingly ineffective. Students are taught and then expected to regurgitate the information; however the information is really unimportant when looking at the skills necessary to live a successful life. The teacher is also considered the expert, and any questioning is strongly discouraged. Yesterday morning, I was sitting in the teacher’s lounge, and Sharon’s partner teacher, Christine, came in and sat down beside me. I was a little confused as I thought that Sharon left for school before me, and she was not with Christine. Christine asked me, “Where is Sharon?” I replied that I was not sure as I thought she had arrived to teach. She said, “Yes, I am supposed to be teaching right now.” I asked her why she was not, and she replied, “I was not able to prepare a lesson.” I said, “So?”, and she replied, “At teacher’s college, they taught us that we should always consider ourselves the expert, and if we are not prepared to give a lesson, then we should not come to class.” I think she noticed my stunned face and continued by saying, “If we are not prepared, then we cannot be the expert in the classroom.” I said to her, “That is the exact opposite in the States. There are many classes that I have walked into without a formal lesson plan in mind, but I just wing it. For us, it is important to meet with the students whether we are truly well prepared or not.” I also told her that she was the expert simply because she was older than the kids and therefore had more life experience. However, I believe that all of this information went right out the window.
Until the educational system completely revamps itself and moves away from regurgitation of facts and moves towards critical and creative thinking, I don’t think it will create an educated society. But I wonder if this government wants an educated society because then the people may question its practices?
Today we actually continued with adjectives in S1, and to add some meaning to comparatives and superlatives, I had them write love poems. I began the lesson with Shakespeare’s Sonnet CXXX, but they had never heard of Shakespeare before, so it took some time to describe him and teach about his language. Then I had to read the poem aloud several times since there was no way to make copies and writing on the board would have taken too long. Once we discussed the poem, they were to think of someone they loved and the write 6 adjectives to describe that person. At that point, they were to create a comparative poem using those descriptions. Some wrote about their mother, father, sister, brother, Tupac, Lil’ Wayne, etc. Some also chose to write about me. One student used the following adjectives to describe me: smart, beautiful, early (I think he meant punctual), good teacher, tall and fat. I am not taking offense to the fat comment as in Uganda, it is seen as a huge compliment. It was very entertaining though. I hope that the students have liked the lessons that I have worked on. I realized through this exchange how important to me it is to provide some sort of real world connection. From what I have witness, students are not expected to make connections, so doing something as simple as writing a love poem to someone connects the use of adjectives to something as little more relevant. I hope that Grace will continue to use some of the strategies we did together, but I do not know.
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