First week of school

The school year is off to a good start. The principal says “we are a small school but we are big”. That is, we don’t have a lot of students but we do big things.

At the start of last year the school was already one teacher down due to retirement. Before I came in January another teacher retired and this year one of the teachers will be attending college.

We were able to replace the teacher who left for college but we are still short the teachers who retired last year. Given the size of the current student population we are only allocated so many teachers so the principal has adjusted the staff. The first and second grades are combined this year. The new teacher is in grade five and the principal needed to figure how to staff the third grade.

First school assembly
One of the new signs in school
Rather than just teacher literacy I’m more a general purpose 3rd grade teacher focused on math and language. I work well with my primary co-teacher who is a student teacher. We are able to prepare for the lessons and co-teach most of the subjects. The principal will also be working in the class for literacy although the first week found her busy with other things. 

The third grade class is small, six students. As might be expected there is a range of abilities among the students. Two need remedial help and adjusted assignments in the lessons. Two can use help with site words. One needs help reading and one is reading independently. So we range from alphabet recognition to independent reading in the language department. There are similar differences in math.

Co-teaching is nice with only six students as we can just about provide tailored work to each student within the primary lesson. I think we will be doing a good bit of differentiated lessons in addition to other forms of co-teaching as we get to know each other’s styles and strengths.

Our schedule of classes

Teaching class

And it will be easier when we get some books. I don’t have a text book/workbook for any subject as there was a general lack of third grade books on the island. I hear books are now available.

 We do have the general scheme of work that is pretty standard and have started with that.

Also the power supply for the printer blew up during prep week, so hard to get handouts and such…

Still, this first week with the students was a good start to the year. I now have a feel for the abilities and personalities of the individual students, given six students I realize that is not that much of an accomplishment. We are working on class rules, showing that we love and care about each student, and doing a little pushing to find current capabilities.

  • Teacher gives two digit math addition problem without carry on the board. (22+41)
  • Student sees two digit math and says “Oh, I can’t do this.” Plops head on desk to cry. 
  • Teacher comes by the little guy and shows him how he can do it.
  • Student back to smiling.


Peace Corps swearing in during the first week of classes


Last week I had to miss a bit of school. We had the swearing in of the twelve new volunteers on Thursday afternoon. They are a good bunch, happy to get started in the schools. We also had a few assigned to St. Vincent swear in with the group.

There was a security event on St. Vincent and in an “overabundance of caution” the volunteers and trainees were temporarily moved off the island. Some of the trainees assigned to St. Vincent swore in with the people here and some on St. Lucia. I don’t have the details of the security event but we all hope that everyone is able to return to their sites in short order. Being pulled from your site can be very difficult.

New volunteers with the Ambassador in the center front


Oh, and one more thing. I got a new haircut for the start of school and now know that I need to be careful when I tell the local barber “short”. This is shorter than I expected.

Short hair

Love always,
John

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pito – brewed millet

Image
Corn, rice, and millet are the common grains grown in my region of Ghana. All three are used food, but millet is also used to produce the local brew – pito, or daa in the local language. “N nyu daa” - in Dagaree means “I drink pito.” There are several varieties of millet grown here – a red and white varieties have loose heads. These are used for pito and other foods. There is also a smaller seed variety with a tight head of seeds that is mainly used for porridge. (Don't have a picture of that variety yet.) In all varieties millet grows on a stalk with the grain head at the top of the stalk. White and red millet in the field Two bundles of while millet to be used for seed next season Converting a grain to alcohol is a common practice in various cultures. It provides a way to capture and digest the nutritional value of the grain. In some places, like Germany and the beer brewing monks, the making a beer was a way to preserve the harvest. In Ghana the millet is
Read more

Yam harvesting

Image
Roger and I went to farm to harvest yam on Saturday morning, September 13, 2014.  In Ghana a yam is a root crop that is different from a sweet potato.  We have sweet potatoes here as well. Yam recently harvested Preparing a yam for boiling The yam has a white flesh – softer than a white potato. In this area the yams are planted between April and June.  Harvest continues into December and January depending on the weather and pigs getting into the field. The plant is a vine – which is grown on stakes rather than allowed the spread out.  The plants are placed on a raised bed about 2 feet high.  The beds are surrounded by flat trenches.  This allows the rains to flow around, but not wipe out the yam crop.  Intercropping seems to be common practice with yams planted in the raised bed, soybeans around the edges, and rice in the trenches.  The occasional corn or okra plant is also among the yams – although the bulk of those crops are in other fields.   Row of ya
Read more

Mid-service Training

Image
This past week was mid-service training (MST). The conference was held on St. Lucia at the Mount of Prayer Coubaril run by the Benedictine Nuns. It was a lovely place with hospitable people as you would expect from Benedictines. A couple of years ago in Ghana I was able to spend a little time at a Benedictine Abby (popular with volunteers) – so it was a nice connection with the two Peace Corps services. I got a little spoiled with the great meals and the WiFi. I intentionally don’t have WiFi at my house so I’m less tempted to stay inside. I do have better data service than Dondometeng in the Upper West - no complaints there and so none here. Their Church Their view Their conference room Getting ready for a meal My room was the only one with a television.  It did work, but I didn't watch anything. My guess is the picture was a little fuzzy because of all the estrogen, but that's just a guy theory with a dirty phone This was actually my firs
Read more