Final Post

Hey Everyone!

Thank you all for your support over my time in Uganda keeping in touch with me and reading my blog. I thought I would post my final project for the semester. I hope you like it!

Please click this link here to see it: https://vimeo.com/80111103

Where did the time go....

I am sitting here in my apartment in Madison and cannot believe a week ago I was still in Uganda. It feels like it was only a dream and I even question that all of these events on blog happened. Being back I felt like I awoke from a dream and can't fall back to sleep. I deeply miss Rwentutu and the students. I feel already as the small details of my journey fade from my memory and I am left to only what I have recorded here. Let me recap my days that led up to my return home.

My final week at Rwentutu was spent trying to finish main topics and projects I had ensured the students we would have time to. Last Monday we also got a flat tire and did not make our lessons and on Wednesday we stopped school early for an assembly... again eliminating another chance for me to teach my students. Although I know that is life and things happen and there is not time long enough to spend with those you care for. I think my recollections of my final days mostly revolves around my students developing a Lhukonzo Dictionary for me. Because we were spending so much time learning about dictionaries and the multiple times I had to ask for translations, that there was not enough Lhukonzo to English Dictionaries in the world... and I knew I could place my students as the experts for their language. Each made a letter of the dictionary. The words came from a word wall I posted the week before. I announced to the students that we were doing this project and told them when they think of a word that they think people who do not speak their native language should know, they should write it on the word wall. It became an impressive list. I was surprised that even with my student who spoke little English, he was able to develop one of the best pages for the dictionary, following my instructions and able to label the parts of speech on his own. This ensures me that when I have students who are fluent in another language, I want and need to incorporate their knowledge into the classroom. Although I know that this is a very basic way to use languages in the classroom... I am only just beginning teaching and I know that I will continue to learn and practice ways to incorporate languages into my classroom.  Here is the finished product.

Our Book!

As I said above we had an assembly on Wednesday. This was our last day at the school. This assembly is such a blur, because I cried during the majority of it. There was so much singing, hugging, dancing, and joy even in this goodbye that I tear up just thinking about it. The one moment I will never forget is that during one of the songs, a student from each of our classes walked up to us and sang a solo to us in front of the whole school. I just remember my face being covered by my hand and tears pouring out. I never have felt so glad I have known such amazing students in my entire life.... Just imagine a student coming up to you and kneel in front of you and say your name in a verse about saying goodbye. There is so much that could be said about this assembly, but I can not find words to express it.

Singing the goodbyes

The last look at my students... 

After the school idea, all that was left was a travel to home. Two days of Kampala led up to a day in Amsterdam and a long flight home to fine my family, best friend, and boyfriend. There is not much to say, but here is a few pictures of my journey.

Painter in Kampala 

Stop at a fancy hotel in Kampala before heading the airport.
With Samson and Enoch.

Visiting Amsterdam!

So that leads to today.... I am now going into my third day of student teaching in the states and I am numb to the fact it will never be Rwentutu or that just starting to read what I will teach is starting to become overwhelming in content and technology I need to readjust to using. I will never forget Rwentutu and my students here won't either. Today I was able to give all the students their letters from their pen pals. Excitement over threw the students' attention to morning meeting and many questions followed throughout the day about their pen pals. I hope to send the responses back to Rwentutu before the end of their term.

Proud Teachers of Rwentutu Christian School

One more blog will come over time, it will be my final project of my trip.... the current plan is a video with a voice over.....

Making Learning Happen In and Outside the Classroom

Two of my Students Organizing
the "O" Authors

So it is the end of our first full week of being in Kasese… and it again has been quite an eventful week. Let’s first start off with how my class has been going!

For me this has been some of the best lessons I have ever conducted because they revolved around improving the school. In English class, my students have started their dictionary unit and one skill they had to learn was alphabetizing. I knew right away how to make this an important skill to the students. One of the aspects of the school that I have noticed was the library’s disorganization. Because my students are older I focused on the chapter books which were thrown mostly in the same cabinet in no particular order. What my class did was take the entire chapter books, colored coded them with pink labels (all the books except these have a colored label) and alphabetize them according to the last name of the author. 

Students Sorting the Chapter Books 

The students got really into it. We had over 100 books to organize around the classroom. We started by just putting them be the letter with the authors’ last names, then pairs of students were assigned to alphabetize each letter’s books. After approval of their alphabetizing, the students got to write on the labels the last three letters of the authors’ last names. From there we return the books to the library and I provided them with a return bin for the chapter books. I then had my students visit each classroom and give a short announcement for the chapter books. The students informed the classes that when they take a chapter book they will return it to the bin and the P6 students will put them back on the shelf. During the entire hour and half lesson all my students were actively engaging with books and rechecking their own work. I believe my students not only have learned how to alphabetize but also how to find an author of a book, how to create organization, and apply learning to our school’s environment. Sorry my word document wouldn't paste for the blogger tonight... so I thought I would post at least the pictures for now. It will be up soon I hope

The Finished Product

My Student with her Sketch and
Finished Poster

With these thoughts, I have also provided the P6 class to also help improve the students’ morale and support of the soccer team. In math class, my students were learning about how to enlarge shapes. So I taught my students this skill one day and the next day my students had to develop a sketch of a poster (any shape they liked), measuring the side lengths and angles. They took these sketches and applied a scale factor that would result in measurements less than 60cm and developed a poster for support the Rwentutu soccer team at the tournament that was today. I enjoyed this lesson because it challenged the students to learning how to both design a poster but also how to take something they have sketched and make it into a real object. The posters turned out great and the Rwentutu students used them to cheer on their team! Check out the photos!

Students Representing P6 with the Posters

Me with my Poster

So as I just mentioned the school had a soccer tournament today! This was a really neat opportunity provided by the Canadian’s nonprofit organization, Free Kicks. They trained 5 local teams, Rwentutu included, to play at the tournament. Because of this tournament, we again did not have school, but it attracted many members of the community to visit our school. Free Kicks provided all the teams with cleats and jerseys. They even had metal goal posts made, an AIDs screening, and microphone provided at the tournament. About 5 of my students played on the team and I realized I am going to definitely be a soccer mom someday, taking a thousand photos of my children, providing snacks, and cheering the entire game… yet understand nothing of the game. I was really proud of all my students who both played and came out to support the team! 

My P6 Students who play soccer and Me

Action Shot

Although the tournament was fun… parts of some Ugandan culture had come out in it. During our trips, we have learned that many people are quite deceiving and do not tell the full truth. During the final game, which Rwentutu made it to, people in the community questioned the players of the competing team. Some community members pointed out that the students on the competing team were not enrolled at that school. There was a large argument about this and it was decided to let the students who were not enrolled play for that team. I personally believe that this is wrong and to represent a school you must attend that school… I know that this may not be everyone else’s beliefs. Yet, our school was contesting that that situation was not fair. However, our team apparently had a student who went to a different school as well, but that was not brought up in the conversation. It disappoints me that even our school would support the values that they were contesting and what does that teach the students of the school? I know that our school wants to follow moral ideas and lying and deceiving should not be role modeled for the children, because it leads to an ongoing circle of youth learning the deceptions of their elders. I know that this may be part of the culture, but I hope that over time there will be a way for people to be honest. Even talking about providing verification to play is difficult, because principals and teachers would lie to make their teams better. What are your thoughts?

Beneth's Family with Heather and I

On a different note, I got to visit a student’s family this week!  My student Beneth has taken it upon herself to write various friends and family of mine in her free time. They have sent back and forth more the 4 letters per a person! She has become very dear to my heart and I requested that I would like to meet her family. So on Thursday, Heather (who has Beneth’s brother as a student) and I went to her family during lunch. It was so nice to see where my student lived and spent time outside of class. It was also nice to meet her parents and put faces to people she has told me about, including her youngest siblings. They cooked for us traditional Ugandan food and allowed us to sit and chat with them. I discovered that Beneth’s father has two wives. I knew that it was possible for many people to have more than one wife, but I suppose I never thought about how my students may have more than just a mother and father included in their immediate family. In addition, we learned that our driver Samson is her cousin! Upon that note, we went with him to visit his father with Beneth’s parents. It was so nice to see the connections within the community that my students have. I felt much closer to her and her family after the occasion and felt as if we all had a shared something really special that not all people get to experience. I really think that is something I want to do in my future classrooms! I think it so important to see where your students are coming from and have the students meet you as soon as you are their student’s teacher.

Well only 7 more days until we leave Uganda. I am honestly ready to leave now, but definitely want to spend as much time with my 19 students as I can. Trust me living with 9 people in one house has definitely got me stressed!

See you soon America.  

LESS THAN 2 WEEKS!

Laundry Bins

The house

Wow I can't believe we have less than 2 weeks left. With that noted, we have split up and assigned the gifts we would like to give to the people we have appreciated and meant here. As well I have started to give away some of the stuff I am not going to need anymore, such as girl products, batteries, jewelry, and clothes. I also have been trying to take photos with each of my students, including a class photo! See this one below! Today I also did my final batch of laundry before I leave! I am really hoping I won't have to do it again, because I know upon my return to my family I will have to re-wash everything anyways. If I have never explained the laundry, I will now. So what I do is get three buckets and fill them half full of water. The water comes from these yellow jugs (see photo) and have to carry them to where I do the laundry and pour them in the buckets. I use the first bucket to soap and drench my clothes; from here I rinse the clothes three times in water! It is a lot harder than it looks and takes about an hour by hand. From there you also have to wait all day for the things to dry and hope that it doesn't rain on your clothes. Not knowing the exact weather is quite hard for planning things. Unfortunately it has not rained in three days in Kasese… this is good for my laundry plans but the native’s crops will suffer if rain does not come soon. So please keep them in your thoughts and wish for rain!

 

P6 Class Photo! 

This week in class I felt really proud of the work being done in my classroom. First I started to integrate reading into my students’ Dictionary unit. The way I am incorporating the books at the moment is having the students copy down words they are unfamiliar with in their reading logs. From here my students learned six steps to defining the word in the context of their clues. The steps included:

Context Clues Work

1. Write the sentence from the book with the words in it.
2. Guess the meaning of the word
3. Look up the meaning in the dictionary (Looking up is one of the skills required to learn by the curriculum).
4. If there is more than one definition, choose which one fits the context of the book.
5. Write a new sentence using the word.
6. Sketch a picture of the word.

This process, worked really well for a majority of my students. I felt as if setting up in this step by step process really allowed for students to dig deeper into how to understand texts and dictionaries. When assessing the students’ work, in which they each had to do this process with 3 words, I would say only 2-3 words were not used correctly when rewritten in a new sentence. I hope to continue to intertwine promoting reading and the required curriculum of reading. I say promoting reading, because it is not a part of any of the curriculum I am suppose to teach. I want my students to learn to learn on their own and enjoy texts. So now I give them 10-20 minutes each day for individual reading and I circulate through the students to read with them. I also promote the idea that the students should read what they like and when they do not like a book to find a new one. The students have also gotten the opportunity to leave our classroom and read all over the grass or on chairs or in the library during this time. Although a short time, I hope that each day the students begin to see the wonders of books and enter the reading zone.

My Students Reading the Leaders from the USA

Group Work Final Draft

In math class, I had to re-teach about the special angles and feel like they finally have reached a point of understanding with the topic. Tomorrow I will spend using my period to finish this topic before moving on to constructing perpendicular lines given a point. On Thursday and Friday, the students worked in small assigned groups. I had noticed during group work, student rarely use one another for talking about the content. So I decided to have the students only turn in one set of answers per a group. After presenting this to the groups and explaining that if one person does all the work and something is incorrect, they all get the answer wrong. I suggested that the within the group, the members talk with one another and make sure they have the correct answers. The groups transformed! Students began to look to one another for how they did the problems and worked together to finish the final set of solutions! I was really proud of the students for working together and out of the four groups there were a total of only 3 incorrect answers! I hope that this promoted team work and for students to view one another as resources for each other.

My Student Arnold playing against the Deputy Headmaster
in Soccer

Friday after school, there was also a teacher versus student soccer game! I did not play because I do not know how to play soccer, but I designated myself as official photographer. It was neat because many of my students played! So I was really rooting for the students to win, which they did! It was so neat to see some of students that I did not know well doing something they appeared they enjoyed! Today we are also getting four Canadians who are coming to the school to coach the student team I saw on Friday in soccer. The Canadians are also organizing a tournament amongst schools in the area! I really hope I get to see my student play and hopefully win before I depart.

One of my students is a twin! Here
is a family photo of them.

Outside of the classroom this week, we visited the local natural hot springs in the area. The water was super hot and I did not take a liking to it. There were many people there bathing and relaxing with friends. We went there with Enoch and his friend Loice. Afterwards we went to celebrate Loice’s birthday at her home. She brought out foods and drinks for the six of us. It was nice to sit down at a person’s house and just socialize at a table. I feel like many times we do not get this opportunity. This also inspired me to want to meet my students’ families. I wish I had more time here to meet the ones I could, but I am going currently reaching out to one family to visit them before we leave. I hope that they will take us, because their son is also in Heather’s class. I hope to find out on Tuesday if they will let us meet them! Part of being a teacher for me is to understand the families of my students or their background. With most of my students boarding, I am not able to meet their families, but I hop when meeting families I can see the value of education and family a family has.

Hot Springs in Kasese

The beautiful Rain Forest during Chimp Tracking!

The latest attraction of my week was chimp tracking. So I was fairly excited for this opportunity but after an hour of doing it, I knew it wasn't really my thing. Chimp tracking basically became I hear chimps somewhere and then start to walk in that direction off the trails and through the rain forest. I loved seeing the forest, but did not enjoy the fact that no one told me that I was suppose to wear pants and then my legs got cut up… I was not too happy with the off trail walking at that point. This was one for the fact that my legs were getting covered in unknown vegetation and that it depletes the conservation efforts that people make to protect our natural environment. I felt as if I was going against what I promoted all summer and the idea of Leave No Trace! The worst part was when we would find the chimps, within two minutes they would be gone and we would start chasing them again… I also did not get a very good picture. Although on the way home we saw 4 elephants! 2 of which were crossing the street and we got to see them moving pretty close to our location!

Well off to greet the Canadians soon! 

Xing Elephant Crossing

The Big Five (or Four)

Decorating for the
Restaurant

So it has been a pretty exciting time since my last blog on Thursday! I will start my conversations where I had left off. On Thursday night of last week, we went to a rotary club meeting with our friend Bryan. At the meeting, they address concerns of the town and spread awareness of the community. Although we arrived late, they welcomed us with open arms. We were asked to introduce ourselves and one the of things we had to say was our relationship status… I did not ask why, but I found it quite strange that this was asked of us due to it being a personal question. I will want to ask Bryan the next time I see him to get more information on that, because even here I have been told they do not tell their parents that they are dating until the engagement to be wed! Knowing that I was quite unsure if it was appropriate to say I was dating or if I was suppose to say I was single. We also meant a few other Bzungu who were at the meeting. It was nice to know that the community is making efforts and suggestions from within the community to better individuals’ lives.

Customers

Our Waiters

On Friday was the most exciting day for my teaching! During the English class and lunch period, my students had two tasks…Pick a book to use for the dictionary unit and set up the classroom as a restaurant. The end of last week marked the finishing of my first English unit. With that said, part of my educational philosophy is to do hands-on activities, so I had promised the students we would put their knowledge of restaurants into practice. Our classroom was transformed into a variety of sitting areas, a counter, waiters, a hostess, chefs, and customers. Each student had a role to do some of the tasks. We had students making the menu, inviting the P6 teachers, gathering the food from the cooks, decorating table mats, picking flowers for the tables, and arranging the room. After all their hard work, the restaurant was a success. Many of the students used the vocabulary words we learned and even corrected the teachers’ table manners! I was very proud of each of my students!

Our Chefs

Counter and Hostess

On Saturday we rose at about 5:30 am for a game drive and boat cruise in Queen Elizabeth State Park! It was soooooo cool to see the animals in the wild! It was almost like my families continual visits to the Animal Kingdom in Disney World but about 20 million times better! My title of the blog refers to the top 5 animals you can see in Uganda.

1.      Leopard

2.     Lion

3. Buffalo

4.      Rhino
5.      Elephant

We saw all of them but the Rhino, because the Rhino does not live in this part of Uganda! I was so excited to see the leopard because our tour guide who has been doing this over 10 years has only see the Leopard maybe 15 times! Here are some additional photos.

Cob

National Bird... the Crested Crane

Warthog

Baby Hippo

When I returned to school on Monday I shared some of my photos with the students. It was disappointing to see that many of them had never heard of or seen a picture of many of the animals. I have heard from many people that most Ugandans have not traveled or know much about the environment of Uganda, so I was not too surprised that my students had never seen them… I was more disappointed that the schools have never taught the students at least to recognize the animals who live no more than 30 minutes from at least our school. There is so much to learn about National Parks, especially since it is one of the major tourist attractions in Uganda that provides revenue.

The Fish Eagle

We also stopped at a craft market in the park and I realized it was definitely set up for foreign tourist. I know this because I wanted to buy a bag there and I knew the bags were only suppose to be 15,000 shillings because they are the same I have seen in all the craft markets… but the lady of the store told me it was 20,000 shillings. I told her it was too much and I could not buy it, immediately she said that she would give me a discount for 15,000 shillings… It was my first attempt at bargaining, but I guess it wasn't too hard to lower to 15,000 shillings because that is already a Mzungu price. I was glad not to have to pay for the extra 5,000 shillings! I am so grateful that at home at most locations prices are fixed and that the prices do not alter based on your origin or skin color.

On Sunday, we took a hike around the Kasese area! After hiking up a step, almost non-existent trail we say all of Kasese at were the future home of the King will be built for the region. We also went with Enoch’s friend Loice. She was one of the first women to be represented in the national council and continental council! She had also taken us for tea! I have learned that I really like African Tea! I bought some tea bags the other day to bring home, hoping I can make it when I return! Here is a recipe if you to try it out!

African Tea

- 1 cup water

-1. 5 t Tea Leaves (we used black tea) 

- 1 cup milk

- sugar

Make hot water and tea, add the milk. Sugar to taste. :)

Monday was also another great day for teaching! Last week Thursday I had taught about a transversal line in math and its special angles. Although, I think it was not explained well and many of the students homework should that they did not fully understand. So I decided to re-teach it. I did this because of the assessment I took on their homework as well as the fact many students had missed that day due to it being right after the school break. It took each special angle step by step and used color coding for the students to do in their notebooks. The students rarely get to use markers or colors for their learning and I thought this would be a great way to engage the visual learners in the classroom. It worked great. I have also begun to slow my pace of teaching, which had helped because the students were on task with my lesson and the notes on the board. The homework also was excellent and showed much more understanding! On Monday we also found out that today, Tuesday, there would be no school. On Saturday it had been announced that today would be a public holiday for a Muslim holiday. The government has been trying to allow for public holidays that are not just Christian to meet the needs of the Muslim populations as well (here is a Huffington Post article about the holiday: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/14/eid-al-adha-2013-feast-of-sacrifice_n_4096669.html ). I think this is a great thing for the government to do and show its inclusiveness. Although, it is interesting that it was decided only 4 days before that it would be  a public holiday and it was only announced over the radio. In America, most of us get our information from the internet. Most of the students were excited to have the day off, but I am quite sad because there are only now 11 days of being with these students. I will forever miss them all…

Have a magical day. 

Another day...

Boating on the Lake in Bwera

So I have been talking a lot about what I have been doing as a teacher, but really not as much about how this write up about how this current travel and teaching experience in Uganda is affecting who I am. So some of you know I have been plowing through writing many applications for jobs after graduation… through this process I have asked my past supervisor and methods TA to write me a recommendation. He is also the person I had asked to write me a recommendation for coming to Uganda… so he is basically good luck and an awesome person for helping me out. He directly asked me “influencing your sense of professional purpose and practice?” In my response to him, I have began to actualize how my student teaching here is answering this question.

• “A main part of why I wanted to student teach in Uganda was to understand the idea of culture, as you may know. And being here has only more complicated the idea of culture, yet allowing me to understand it more (which yes is a bit contradictory). I can see what I have been taught as culture as a total way of being and it is true. I have learned it’s the expressions you use to confirm something, the facial expressions you use when you are agreeing, the sense of time.... basically so many things that it cannot fully be explained here. But starting to understand these things has shown me how culture is so entwined with education. For instance, the people I have meant here have meant here say they like to live a simple life and do not worry as much about money as we do at home. Last week, after a month of the term, the school ran out of money because of the students not paying their school fees. The school is fairly basic and serves the same thing each day and has minimal teaching resources, yet they do not bother people about getting money. It is only when the school ran out of money that the students and staff were told of the dilemma and asked to help have students bring in school fees. At home, I could never imagine a private school allowing for students to continue being educated without some of them paying a dime. The simplicity is so new to me and I can only barely fathom this idea of living by the bare minimal until all resources are gone. Yet then I remember, why do I need more than I use, how could I be that selfish. So going to work in an area of high needs or in completely different culture I have to remember to appreciate who the people are and how they live. The only way to learn that is to be involved in the community and understand where the students are coming from. As well I am struggling yet beginning to learn many ways of doing things with only chalk and a chalkboard. The first few weeks, I felt as if I was losing myself as an educator because I could not figure out to tie my love for hands-on curriculum with their resources. Although I still cannot truly be as hands on as I like, I have the students go out of the classroom and use the environment to learn math or to involve drama in learning English... all of which I would put more emphasis on technology and tools in most American classrooms. All of this has made me want to be a better educator and continue to learn ways to use what I have to be the best educator I can be while tying in my pedagogical beliefs.”

Hospital in Bwera 

Wah… so I know that was a load full of information and stuff about me. I think having the prompt and motivation from his question really helped me focus on what I am learning here. So please if you want to know something, leave me a comment with a question and I would love to answer, because it is probably helping me more than you (not to selfish).

Enoch and his wife at the Craft Market

Secondary School in Bwera

Ramp being built

With school being out the past two days, it has been hard on me. Over the last week I have become really homesick. On Tuesday we went to Bwera, to visit Enoch’s hometown and to see some sights… I cried probably 4-5 hours that entire day and he was quite concerned with me. I am not sure why at this time in my trip this was happening but I think it really has to do more with the fact that I do not have close friends here rather than the culture. The other girls are great, I just take my time making friends and it is hard living with 3 others…. So basically I concluded I will never travel alone again! But when I was not sulking in my homesickness, I really enjoyed my time in Bwera. We got to visit a local hospital, with a great view of the town as well as one of the best secondary schools in the area. They even had computer class and chemistry rooms… it was so much different than Rwentutu, and holds home for over 1000 students! (Rwentutu has less than 200) Enoch was also telling us that they are building a library for the school and because it is now getting government funding, the school must provide access for those who are disabled. Here is a picture of the wheel chair ramp being built. It is good to know that Uganda is making an effort for students of all abilities to have equal education. On Wednesday it was Independence Day for Uganda… there was not much going on in Kasese, so I decided to take a personal day to relax and reflect. I much needed it, yet had regretted not going into town until today. When I was asked about my independence day I said I relaxed, others mostly responded that they stayed home or gardened…. which made me feel much better about the fact that most Ugandans in this area don’t do something special.

 

Steven and I 

Baby fascinated with
Bzungu

Reversing my thoughts a bit, on Monday we stopped at an orphanage. I was quite nervous about going to this place because of the sadness it might evoke in me. They first brought us to the babies…. I honestly don’t like babies very much so I stood by and observed. The children had such little toys to play with and laid on the ground. It smelt like stale pee, yet the young children seemed very happy, which is most important. Afterwards I got the chance to play with some toddlers and hear their stories. I meant a small boy named Steven who basically won over my heart. The lady working said he was found in a dumpster at day one. I am glad he is well and safe now… the school even sends the children who are of age to primary school… so there is hope for Steven to have a good life.

Best of days…