The reason I volunteered

The past few days have brought a lot of changes. The first week or so in my village I became a bit frustrated that I wasn’t able or allowed to do much of anything around the school. It seemed as if everyone wanted and expected me to be superwoman, but at the same time would not fit me in the timetable to do so. Honestly, I was overwhelmed and felt as if my presence was in vain when I physically could do nothing but continue to ask my principal to fit me into the schedule. The issue wasn’t that they weren’t trying, the principal had to meet with two other teachers to decide which classes I could replace with my computer/Life Skills class. One day the principal would be here, but the other two were not and vice versa.

Finally, this Wednesday afternoon the committee fit me into the timetable by replacing several Basic Information Sciences courses and a few Religion classes. I felt like I was finally getting somewhere after idly making lesson plans for a week. The funny part is that I went from doing that, to having an insane schedule in the matter of a day! I came in this morning an hour before school started to discover that I had too many learners per class to fit them all in the computer lab on our main desktops. So, I had to download the typing software I wanted to use with the learners I had been teaching informally all week onto about forty small laptops…one at a time…before my classes started. Then I had the secretary need help fixing her laptop at the same time, and another teacher bring in a massive stack of notebooks that she needed help grading for her English class. Craziness. Everything eventually calmed down again, until the science teacher took the projector I needed for my class two minutes before the class started. Solution: some serious improvisation! I know you’re thinking “wow poor first world girl without a projector…deal!” But I also don’t have any type of chalkboard to write on in the classroom and was teaching grade 5 learners that have one year of English. I’ve found that communication without any visuals is only successful with lots of crazy hand motions and an endless supply of patience. Thankfully, I’ve got a good bit to spare!

Overall, it was pretty successful. One moment in the day stood out to me more than any other though. I was working with the grade 5 and had two learners per computer. Two of the girls in the class were exceptionally bright and picked up on everything so quickly, but one was using her left hand on the mouse. We’ve been trying to get all of the learners to use their right hands so the backwards button confusion doesn’t throw them off too much. So, I asked the girl if she thought she could try to use her right hand instead of her left. She paused a moment then put her right hand on the mouse. I wanted to break down and cry. She had been using her left hand because her right hand is severely deformed, and here I was telling her that using her right hand is better. How could I not have noticed? I certainly wasn’t going to tell her then that she couldn’t use her right hand. If she was confident enough to try, I had to be confident enough to teach her. We figured out a way for it to work and I felt a new confidence arise in her when she conquered using the mouse with a hand that everyone told her was no good. That moment made everything worth it. It was by far the happiest moment I’ve had since I’ve been here. This is why I volunteered.