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.
