What Uganda Do?: TOD Finale

Tomorrow officially ends my duty week. It has been exhausting! Between the requests to leave college (figuring out if they're truthful or pure lies), the scary illnesses, kitchen troubles, chasing ladies out of the dormitories after breaks and lunch, opening the library for two hours each evening and teaching as well, I haven't had any energy left at the end of my days to do much cooking. Today was a great end to my tiring week. I had a (brief!) assembly to sum up the week. Let me report on how things panned out:

1) Intervention: Random classroom checks, candies, roll calls
     Response: Students enjoyed the candy, but it wasn't enough motivation to really get them moving. It wasn't until I would go into classrooms after, say, lunch and demand the class coordinator to take roll. Then they came a runnin'.

2)Intervention: Trivia questions
   Response: I had perhaps 10 students who were really into this. They were all boys, and all second year students. The deputy principal came in mid-way through the week, looked at the library-sign-out book and wrote down names of students who hadn't visited the library all year. This seemed to bring those few in as well. Even if trivia didn't exactly achieve what I wanted, I sure did have fun. When I handed out the prizes, I asked students to share something they learned about America--and they all could rattle off some impressive facts! "Jazz music originated in the Harlem neighborhood of New York, and was most popular during the 1920's." "Americans call 'trousers' 'pants,' and they call 'knickers' 'panties.'" "Madam Mary works for Peace Corps, which started in 1961."

3) Intervention: Choosing "model students."
     Response: Students weren't very concerned with winning this title, but I did keep on them for smartness. Mid-week, I had a briefing and expressed how terrible it looks when students sleep in class, and what message that's sending to the tutor. "Think about yourself. How do YOU feel when you're student-teaching and a pupil is sleeping in your class? What if pupils just sat outside while you were in class, like you do to some tutors?" I noticed a response the rest of the week--students were generally more attentive. Our winners were both first-year students--Peter and Lydia. They are also in the same class. Both of them participate actively in any subject. Lydia has visited the library frequently, and even checks out some books for leisure (which is rare at the college). Peter has good posture all the time, even though he has to sit on one of the P4 desks. Peter humbly accepted his award, but I feel like I thoroughly embarrassed Lydia.

4) Intervention: Awarding the cleanest dormitory a banner.
     Response: After communication from me during the mid-week briefing about the condition of their dormitories, there was an OBVIOUS effort in the girls' dorms to keep things a bit more tidy. Unfortunately, the boys weren't inspired, and their abode continues to be smelly and infested with rats. (Some boys did request I help them with the purchase of a rat trap). The funny thing is that, while I was putting in much energy to examine the dormitories, my own two rooms are despicable, due to the little time I spend at home. The winners were from the "Victoria" dorm. Their floors were so clean you could eat off of them, and their beds look like catalog advertisements for bedspreads.

5) Intervention: Award for best learning environment
    Response: Students did indeed put in a lot of effort to see that their floors were mopped, daily. Additionally, some classes requested for materials so they could add some learning aids to their walls. Stream T, a year one class, was the winner. They even had an interactive phonics chart.

Overall: I think that while my interventions were a fun approach to behavior change, they weren't very effective. If they were maintained, I think they could possibly inspire some improvements. The students told me they had fun, and I hope that's what they remember. I also hope that they try something like this at their student-teaching placements in third term.