Ossibye oty'eo? Good afternoon! How are you?
"I'm fine."
Lovely! I am as well. I sadly do not have much news to post, but I have the time, so I figured I might as well take advantage. This past week I spent at Maggie's site, near Iganga. Bishop Willis was hosting a workshop for introducing the new P5 curriculum so that the head teachers, tutors and Coordinating Center tutors can this week pass on the information to the actual P5 teachers. I was looking around at other PCVs blogs, and have been hearing some feedback from others, and the general experience from others (whom I've heard) had a somewhat unfortunate/non-beneficial experience at the workshop. I was too lucky to be with a group of teachers who were adamant about keeping time, got to the point and were creative and energetic throughout. I took away several small learnings, one being that there are debates and different views one teaching local languages in schools. Also, I learned that the concept of ongoing assessment is a brand spanking new idea to Ugandan teachers. I feel like it needs its own workshop, because it was evident there were a lot of participants who left confused. A large piece of what I took away is what the P5 curriculum is; what it looks like and sounds like in the Ugandan context. Just as literacy across the curriculum was the new initiative in Milwaukee Public Schools before I left, Uganda is emphasizing language competencies across the curriculum, which was something that we all focused on in our lesson presentations. One of my favorite presentations was the English group who taught about parts of the car. For their lesson, someone drove up his actual car, and the presenter labeled his car with flashcards. A comical debate followed about the cost of learning aids...haha... I was somewhat nervous on the last day, before presenting my lesson. Our group (science) ended up being scheduled last (although we were originally slotted to go first). After each groups' presentation, the facilitator invited questions and comments from the audience. This workshop was hosting great group of experienced teachers, and after politely thanking the group for their effort, they would go on to critique certain aspects of the lessons, especially ones that pertained to the realities of teaching Ugandan children. I noticed a lack of just positive comments from the audience, so I would only comment positively on groups' presentations. My science group had elected me to present, which I originally thought would be a piece of cake, until I heard the critiques from the fellow teachers. I tried to focus on deep breaths when I took the stage. I taught about different types of soils, demonstrating with a student-led constructivist observation activity. I made sure to incorporate the language competency for that lesson--reading and spelling clay, sand, loam and soil. The time keeper rang his bell, and I abided by it, finishing my lesson by explaining how I would wrap it up. I had one question, which was asking about when the students would have learned about the cooperative groups--I had the chance to defend myself and say that it would have been previously established and procedures would have been practiced prior to the lesson. After that, there were only positive comments. I couldn't tell if they were going easy on me because I was the only mzunugu there or if the lesson that I presented was an actual fantastic example of P5 science. Either way, I THINK I made a good impression. I did mention, as people complimented me afterward, that it was a group effort (our whole science group planned as a team, I was just the example teacher).
I was spoiled at Maggie's place this past week--movies every night! And great company! :) Today my sole task was laundry, and wholly laundry--I used exactly 40 liters of water... If my fellow PCVs read this they're probably shocked and horrified. It's a lot. But I did, like, an AMERICAN SIZED load of laundry!! I can wear a different outfit each day of the week next week! And they're all smart clothes! :D At one point, I ran out of room on the clothesline to hang things, and I had to dry my sheet (I EVEN WASHED MY BEDSHEETS!) My backyard is mostly mounds of dirt, and then a garbage pit, so there wasn't even grass upon which it could lay. I noticed that the roof of my latrine is slanted towards the sun (in the mornings) so I climbed up on a chair and hoisted it up, spreading it out. It worked pretty darn well, and dried in under 20 minutes.
In other news--get this fellow PCVs--I wore PANTS and I received TWO "You're smart!" comments today. Woo! And they weren't even that smart of pants...
Ok, I'll hopefully have some more interesting adventures to post soon... And when I say interesting a pray that it's not one involving roaches...
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