To the school!

So today was my first official day of student teaching, although, it was probably not like my cohort’s experience. First of all, in Uganda they do not really keep track of the time, they call this “Ugandan Time.” It basically means that you do things when it has progressed in the day rather than the actual specific time. For me this slowness and enjoyment of current time will take some getting used to, especially after last semester where I had to be in places each hour of the day and not a minute late. Anyways I started with this fact because it sort have changed the layout of my day.

Us in the area where we can have a teacher's lounge

We got Rwentutu Christian School and got to meet with the headmaster (Wilson) and deputy to the headmaster (King James). We learned a few things about both our school and schools in Uganda. We learned that our school has about 210 students expected to attend. Because it was the first day of classes, only about 40 showed up, Wilson said by the end of that week most students will begin to come. This apparently is a norm for the school; these students are also starting a week earlier than other Ugandan Schools due to our arrival. It was very kind of them to ask the government to let them do this; otherwise we would not have been able to fulfill the student teaching needs. P1-P5 have exams twice a trimester, while P6 has every other week, and P7 has each week. We now know that the rest of this week we shall be observing in classrooms that we would like to. I have chosen to view P4, P5, and P6. I was hoping to also see the P7 classroom, however because of their national exams at the end of the term, I will not be able to. This is quite understandable because the national exams determine their secondary schooling possibilities.

After this orientation we took a tour of the school. See a few pictures below of the school.

My possible future classroom! P6

They did an assebly and rose four flags (Wisconsin
Badgers!, Canada, America, and Uganda)

Interesting Facts of the Day:

•           More men teach than women
•           Islamic and Christian content is tested on during the national exams
•           There is a section on Fridays for social development
•           They loved learning the “London Bridge” game

I hope you found those facts interesting, because honestly the rest of the day was doing the all school assembly and introducing ourselves, and playing with the children. We were given names based on our family rank to say when we introduced ourselves….  I am Masika Angela… which means first born. The students definitely remembered our names with the extra Uganda information because many of them were Masika as well! Many children gather when we go in different spots, they will start to follow or sit closely and want to play. I have noticed that children can be children anywhere in the world even if their upbringing is completely different; they have the same basic needs as any child. Here are a few pictures of my time there today!

Reading a book to the many children who gathered by us

So instead of observing teaching or engaging in staff meetings or content (like originally planned), we played and enjoyed the company around us…. Talk about a change in pace for me!