Schools!

It has only been a few days since my last post but already I feel like I have much to tell. First of all I had my students finish writing their papers! I was overall very impressed. The students mostly need to work on their grammar, but many of them listening to what I have been teaching with how organize and structure the papers. The one thing that mostly affected their scores was not fully meeting the requirements for the assignment. For example, only have 13 vocabulary words instead of 20. Here is the student who we wrote his paper together. The end is where I challenged him to write on his own and he did a fairly decent job! I am very proud of his work and allowing me to guide him through the writing process. I have noticed his is a very visual learner because I taught the children how to indent and do the titles and such on the board before they wrote and he followed the directions when he rewrote his paper! I think knowing this will definitely improve how I have been teaching the English course by using more visuals during the mini lessons. I also compiled all the students’ work into a magazine. They have very little of their own work throughout the classroom and I wanted to give them something that they could be proud of as a class.

Netball Tournament. Mixture of Handball
and Basketball. 

I really hope they like it! Another exciting thing going on is the class has written letters to my future class at Hawthorne. Reading these letters brought a variety of emotions to me. Many of the students have greeted the USA children in “the name of Christ” and say that they “love them.” Some of the children have asked for phone numbers and say that they hope to visit the USA one day. Maybe about 5 or 6 students also asked if the USA students if their parents were still alive. As I contemplated this question, it was interesting. I feel like this is not a common question asked back home to people, because it is rare that many children have lost a parent. I also learned the life expectancy here is 45 years old. This makes sense why my students may have experienced loss of family in their lifetimes at such a young age.  When sending this letters over email to my CT at the USA school, I had to explain much about the children’s writing (such as what is net ball & football, why they greet them in the name of Christ, etc.). I anticipate the students responding to my students here! I have learned much about my students as well through these letters, the ones who have loss parents, their future dreams, what they like to do. I found letters are a great way to get to know your students. As a teacher I feel cheesy when I am asking them questions like that, especially to older students, but when they write letters they want to express who they are through writing. I love learning what my students can expose me too!

Just a really good picture! This little girl use to be afraid
of white people, but she held my hand on Friday!

So on Friday, the teachers and us were pulled out from our class for a staff meeting. I regret not quickly writing some practice problems before I left, therefore losing out on 30 minutes of learning for the students, but the meeting was important. Our head master came in and announced that many of the students have still not paid this term’s school fees. With this said, the school no longer has the resources to feed the students and pay the staff. The meeting was to discuss what should be done. It sounded like the students were all going to be sent home, including the ones who board. After much discussion, it was decided that students will go home Monday afternoon instead of that day. The reason mostly being was so the school could contact the students’ families who board announcing the children’s arrival. So on Monday the students will stop school until Thursday. Wednesday they already have off due to the Independence Day. The school is unsure about how many students will be able to return with money. It was sad being in this conversation because I just wanted to pay for the food that the students needed, but I knew I couldn't support them for the entire term. I hope that all my students can find the resources to pay the school fees. I am so proud of each and every one of them that I do not want any of them to lose a chance for a good education. This also inspired me to one day sponsor a child at the school. I hope that when I leave I can do this. The schools website actually provides the information and ways to sponsor a child. I think this is at least what I can do to pay the school back for such a wonderful opportunity to teach their children.

Emily giving a speech!

Invisibles

On other school news, today we went to a Senior Six farewell graduation party for our compound neighbor Birra. She invited us to the school for this event as special guests. We had to help pay for the ceremony but we did not mind giving to the school. As a special guest, one of us had to give a speech, we had to start the dance party, and bless and cut the cake. As we entered we also entered with the senior six class down a red carpet… we were a bit under dressed compared to their fun party dresses and suits. We sat and watched speeches wishing the students luck and thanking their teachers. There were also many miming (like karaoke) performances. When these happen, many people dance up to the performer and give him/her money. I saw this as well at the wedding we saw, and found it so interesting that people truly cherish when people perform… especially when fine arts are taught little to none in the schools. They also had a dance crew called the Invisibles perform. This group is one of the best in Uganda! One of their members is number 4 individually! It was awesome to watch… I have a few pictures, but I cannot load the video until I return to the USA. After about 3 hours of celebrating we finally left. Ugandan events are quite loud and full of speakers and music, therefore causing us to become very exhausted. It is also hard to hear what they are saying, because there were two MCs who continually talked together and back and forth. Luckily our friend Birra was one of them, so it made it very fun to see her MCing the event! She looked beautiful, or as Ugandans may say “she looked smart.” Smart is basically saying someone looks very good. Here are a few pictures from this great event!

Mr and Mrs Party!

Birra and Us! She is soooo pretty!

Dancing around the cake table! 

Elius my P6 Student!

Watching this event and also seeing many children around makes me so grateful for how people celebrate the completion of an education. I think it is important for children who are young to see people who were like them finish school and going on to do more important things. This event although was prior to their final exams, therefore the students in the senior six class do not yet know if they will make it to a good university until those are finished. It is interesting to note that the USA isn’t the only one with high stakes testing… in no means do I mean I like that in any way….

Have a good week!