What does Mary do in the Peace Corps?
You could say teaching, but lately that wouldn’t be the truth, exactly. At my Primary Teacher’s college, it’s the scheming season! It’s time for our Year Two students to do their semi-final school practice. For my former cohort members, it’s like fieldwork, except they’re expected to do everything, not bits and pieces. For everyone else, it’s student teaching. Last week was their orientation week to scheme, lesson plan, etc. (For non-Ugandan teachers, scheming is like writing out a rough outline of what you're going to teach for the whole term). I presented “Teaching Science” on Thursday, and by that time I was certain they had the grasp of how to scheme and lesson plan, as they also had gone through "Teaching English," "Teaching Social Studies," "Teaching CRE," which all have the same layout of scheme. I just pointed out some key features in the science scheme that I want to see. I then launched into my plea to reach out beyond the beloved chart making when teaching science. To encourage a variety of learning aids, I brought in a few examples. The one I was most excited about was my paper-mache volcano. Unfortunately, already sweating about getting everything planned perfectly, the students weren’t really listening to my spiel, until the volcano erupted! :D I could have been speaking Russian, for the amount that they were understanding, but at least the volcano made an impression. I also introduced my puppet friend, which got a pretty good laugh. We brainstormed about when you can use puppets in teaching, and I hope I see some mastery ventriloquism when I supervise my students.
Aside from that, Immaculate, our student labor team and I finally finished organizing the library! I unfortunately do not have “before” pictures, so please fully appreciate my “after” pictures, and imagine blank, institution-like walls in the before.
Today wasn’t a particularly exceptional day, except that I felt somehow knowledgeable and helpful. In contrast to my lesson on learning aids, where I stood in front of a bunch of worried, stressed-out student teachers that weren’t particularly interested in my passion for paper-mache, students came to me asking what else they can do to incorporate non-chart things. I’ve been working particularly close with a group of teachers preparing to teach P4 science. Every lesson had “chart” listed as learning material. I helped them brainstorm other things they could do-for example, when teaching about clouds, they could use cotton balls to model the shapes of the different clouds (nimbus, cirrus, stratus, etc.) When it came to the water cycle, the Uganda Pupil’s book actually had a good experiment for demonstration to perform, which involved hot water vapor steaming a glass bottle with cold water in it, which would in turn heat, evaporate, and condense on the cool bottle, and finally “rain” into a dish. My favorite learning-aid challenge was today when Joseph who was scheming for P5 Social Studies came to me with a dilemma. “Madam, we’re teaching about climate regions in Uganda, and all we can think to use are maps, showing the different climatic regions.” I suggested tying in science, of course. There was some content that related to effects of different climate regions, or something, and he talked about flooding. Then we talked about what we do to avoid flooding around our house, and voila! We had our demonstration. I began to explain the idea that I had in my head, but I thought what the heck, I have nothing but time and an extra basin in my office, we can do this now. I locked up the library and we went to find materials. We filled the basin with sand to represent the soil, and used a large rock represent a “house.” Then, we poured water on the house to simulate rain. At this point we would ask the pupils, “how can we keep the water away from our house as it rains?” A pupil may offer that we dig a ditch--the pupil digs in with his/her finger and re-routes the water. Joseph, the student-teacher, and I, were both excited about the potential activity. He brought the demonstration into where his fellow P5 teachers were scheming together, and presented it. They were impressed, and perhaps more attentive as it directly tied in to the material they’re teaching. I hope to have a similarly inspiring and active day tomorrow.
In other news, I got to spend some brief, and expensive, time in Kampala. My reason for being there was to be a part of a committee meeting which went between maybe-it-should-be-dissolved to maybe-this-committee-could-do-EVERYTHING! Being in Kampala was pretty fun though--I had the chance to eat at the food court in the mall! (Your life is so exciting Mary, I can hardly stand it). At the food court here, there are waitstaff for each counter who mob you when you sit down, offer menus and try to persuade you to order from their restaurant. It's pretty neat--a food court that serves
you. Another fun thing about Kampala is people watching. I blow in from Jinja in my very village-smart clothes only to feel more than inadequate when staring bug eyed at the ladies who waltz by in matching outfits with gorgeous, immaculate shoes and fancy jewelry to top it all off. It's not just the adults who look fabulous, the children are always put together too. Additionally, there's something different about the kids there. It took me a while of staring at one kid, somehow creepily, before I realized what it was...
I was the one doing the staring. They could have cared less about me, not to mention they weren't asking for anything. It was bizarre...why aren't these children worshiping me? I watched as a mom and dad sat at a cafe on a Sunday morning, both reading the newspaper waiting for their food, while their children also sat, contented, quiet and overall just chill. Kampala's weird. It was nice to get back home to the chant of "Ma-wy! Ma-wy!" and have tiny arms and hands embrace me in a knees-only hug.
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| They liked the puppet |
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| My puppet and I decided to match that day... |
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| "This is an elephant...kind of..." |
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| OOooooooh pretty :D |
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| A "talking environment" |
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| Oh aren't I clever? |
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| No, this is not the before picture. It was MUCH worse before.... |
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| These were locked away in this cabinet for who knows how long |
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| DR PEPPER IS IN JINJA! |
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| Rashida! The provider of Dr. Pepper.... |
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| Kampala is so fun! |
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| Weeeee! |
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| George and I had a heart-to-heart |
"Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?
Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,"
