Teaching

I came here to teach but I realize that I’ve pretty much neglected to talk about school.  I swear I’m actually working out here…

Monday through Friday the boys come over from 9-12:15 for school.  Although they’re only two years apart by age, they are at completely different levels for school.  Kian is 11 but is maybe at the level of a first grader.  He doesn’t even have the whole alphabet down and still can’t distinguish b from d, g from j, and y and q might as well be squiggles in his mind.  With his SID he gets really frustrated with himself, but all in all he’s one of the sweetest kids in the world.  Some days he’s great, but then others he can’t even read the word “the”.  Or sometimes it varies by minute.  Every day I have him read outloud a few pages from a book, and if the same word appears in one sentence twice, he often reads it perfectly the first time, but then completely makes up a word for the second time.  When I tell him to sound it out and not to guess, he often freaks out screaming, “It doesn’t make sense! These letters don’t make up a word! Why would they spell it like that?! Just tell me what it is!” And when I point to the same word earlier in the sentence he often can’t even tell that the two are identical.  Once I make him calm down and take a deep breath he usually can get the word correct in a second.  It makes me so sad to see him get angry like that.  But then there are other days where he gets so excited and hugs the books saying, “I love reading!”  He has certainly taught me a thing or two about patience, something I don’t have much of (which I’m sure many of you can attest to).

Dylan, 9, is wonderful and very advanced for his age.  He loves to read and learn, which is a blessing for me.  In fact, my problem with him is finding new, age-appropriate things that he doesn’t know about!  In the mornings while I’m suffering through a book with Kian I usually just give Dylan things to do on his own (reading, worksheets, etc) which he probably likes better anyways because then I’m not hovering over him.  I have a “Word of the Day” for him, which he loves, and always points out when he hears them in conversations or films, which certainly excites me.  He asked me to teach him Morse Code (he read about it in a Hardy Boys book) so thanks to Wikipedia we had a few lessons on that.. Other than that I’m working on spelling difficult words with him and dictation, division, fractions and so on.  When I give him a book to start reading for a half-hour, he’ll be done with the whole thing in 20!  But I guess that’s a good problem. 

For the first hour and a half we do reading and writing things, and then it’s time for snack! Woohoo!  During this time I pretty much just keep pestering Kian to actually eat because he’s so busy day-dreaming and telling about his nightmares that make no sense and go on for about an hour. 

After snack we do math.   Kian is working on addition and subtraction up to 20.  Although he loves to guess and often tells me that 7 + 8 = 3, or something to that effect.  Dylan is essentially perfect with his times table, and we’re now breezing through division and fractions.  We have these fun computer games that test their math skills, so we often end the schoolday with that.  Pretty sweet deal.  Also, Friday after snack has now been dubbed “Flag Friday” and we each pick a flag to draw and learn about which are now making up a boarder of flags around the classroom.  Nothing like a little coloring and geography to welcome in the weekend. 

In the afternoons on MWF they come over for an hour or two for “activities”.  We watch National Geographic videos, color, play games, look at things under their microscope, do crafts such as making the giant snake, etc.  It’s tons of fun.  Thankfully they both really like school!  So that makes my job easier and Nani seemed relieved that from day 1 things went well. 

When I meet guests at the tented camp they often ask if the kids are actually learning anything out here and assert that it’d probably be best to put them in an actual school with other kids.  But honestly we are absolutely in the middle of nowhere… there’s a town about two hours away and Arusha is the closest main city and it’s about 5 hours away.  Other than that there’s just bush and small villages around, mostly huts made of sticks, mud, and cow poo.  So, eventually they might send the boys to Arusha for boarding school for highschool, but who knows.  I doubt Kian will ever get to that point, sadly.  Although my teaching may not be the best since I’m not exactly qualified (which I told them before they offered me the job!) I truly believe that they have learned more living out here.  They speak three languages fluently (Kiswahili with their friends who are all village kids, German with their dad, and English in school and most of the rest of the time) and know so much about plants, animals, and survival in the bush.  As far as I’m concerned, as long as they can read, write, and do simple math they’ll know so much more living out here.  Dylan wants to be an archeologist, so this is the perfect place for him.  Kian on the other hand would probably receive so much harassment from the other kids if him and Dylan were to go to boarding school in Arusha (the only other viable option) so I think it’s best that he stays out here at least until he has more confidence.  All the village kids treat him so well, but as Nani explained, “He’s white, so he’s automatically weird.  It doesn’t matter if he has a learning disability, in their eyes he’s already different so they don’t care.”

It’s definitely been interesting teaching, and I have learned a WHOLE LOT.  I’ve definitely started thinking like a teacher, because everything I do and see I think to myself, “how could I make this into a lesson??” It’s fun, but I have no idea how people can do it for a lifetime.  Thankfully I have the weekends off to relax and prepare for the next week.