In this tiny village on the side of the highway in southern Namibia, we have become experts in being thrown in at the deep end. Tuesday was our first day of teaching, and without warning or any opportunity to plan, we found ourselves with a class plonked in front of us four times, expecting to be taught. It didn't help that when we tried to ask the very first class what they knew about their subject, we were met with blank looks. We persevered, however, and found that a few starter games and drama exercises more than fit the bill for a 40 minute lesson. A particular favourite is a game taught to us on Project Trust's training week back in December. For that, Heloise Allan, you are a hero - we are forever indebted to you for unintentionally providing us with starter games for an entire week's worth of first lessons.
At the moment, we're teaching arts and BIS (essentially a library class) to the upper primary school. We have 6 classes and each with have 3 lessons a week in total with us. The school are currently redoing the timetable to find the best use of our time here, and with two teachers absent next week, the opportunities to teach more are quickly arising. Setting up the school library will keep us more than busy, and the teaching's great. I think the learners are not quite used to our wacky games and mannerisms, answering "Yes, Miss" to absolutely every question, but they seem to enjoy our lesson - we even had applause yesterday! They also take great amusement in how white we are. They are forever asking us why we are so pale, or why we are always so hot, or reminding us to take shelter from the sun. Quite endearing, but justified - it is so, so hot.
School runs between 7am and 1pm, and teachers usually come back at 3pm for extra-curriculars or extra work, but today we finish one lesson early and so are off to Keetmanshoop with Mrs Kruse. It's really hard to take pictures here without being ambushed by the kids, but below are some shots of the school.
No comments:
Post a Comment