I felt like a super-teacher in my tutoring session today. I had four kids at three very different levels. Gertrude and Daliso are high and can read and write English, but they are struggling with much of the vocabulary in “James and the Giant Peach,” so I can’t let them read it without my guidance. Then there’s Given, who is improving at a rapid pace, but still can’t be without my help for too long because he’s reading at maybe a first-grade level, or lower. And then comes Obey – the super smart eight year old who can read a little higher than Given and write much better English. I felt that despite the large differences in levels, I was able to give them all the attention that they needed and not waste anyone’s time.
English with the ladies was really fun today. We ended class by combining both ability groups together to play the fly-swatter game (thank you Pastor Seilz and my years of Spanish class for that one). The ladies loved it – these normally reserved, rather quiet mothers were getting really competitive and laughing hysterically.
After Anne spoiled us with more fritters, we met Pastor Sargent and headed off to the school in Matero. We stopped to pick up Mr. Saeli at Kaunda Square, and while we were waiting for him, some of the little kids in the school spotted us and came over to touch our hands. One little girl ran up to me and stretched out her arms to get picked up, so we snuggled for a little while as I gave handshakes to the other kids.
At Matero, we met with the pastor of the church and several of the teachers. The purpose of the meeting was to set up in an in-service day for teacher training. Our meeting didn’t take too long, so we were able to observe a couple classrooms. We met a young teacher, Justin, the teacher for grade four and saw a woman teaching grade five. One interesting thing about the culture here is they don’t raise hands. The teacher will say something like, “Two goes into six how many times?” and the students respond in unison. There’s lots of chanting in unison – greeting visitors who come in, (“Good afternoon, madams!”) reading off the board together, giving answers, etc. When leaving the grade five classroom, I spotted a kid wearing a WSU Cougars T-shirt. Someone from eastern Washington is sending lots of clothes out here!
I’m still shocked by how barren the school at Matero is. The rooms are neat but completely sparse. There is no such thing as posters. There’s no tray filled with scrap paper, no drawer with calculators, or even a cup filled with pencils. If the teacher wants to show a map of Zambia, he has to draw it himself. If he’s teaching about the lifespan of a butterfly, he draws it himself. There’s no PowerPoint or even a computer to print off pictures. Hours and hours of valuable preparation time are spent copying teaching tools by hand. And this school is considered rather well-off for Zambia. There are more desolate schools who can’t even afford paper. Imagine trying to teach kids without having those resources. It makes me sick to think about how even the poorest schools in America have a thousand times more access to resources than schools here do. And yet, there always seems to be complaining. The teachers here are a lot more creative and resourceful, and American teachers could learn a lesson or two from some of the people we observed here.
And get this...there are many students who, after graduating from Kaunda Square or Matero, can’t go on with their education because it’s too expensive. To Americans, “too expensive” usually means thousands and thousands of dollars. Here, that means $200. Two hundred dollars, which isn’t much more than a pair of basketball shoes, or an iPod, or any other item I’ve so thoughtlessly bought.
On to lighter topics…
Charity asked us if we wanted to sing in a special choir they were forming for Wednesday night services. Of course we said yes and went to practice in the evening. It was so much fun! I’m not usually such a big fan of choirs unless I’m playing the piano, but Charity taught us all the songs without words and music in front of us, or even a piano accompanying. It was interesting to learn a song that way. I felt like I was working a completely different part of my brain. She asked us if we could teach them a song, so we got the lyrics to “Lamb of God.” Some of the girls knew the melody already and Charity is extremely talented and was able to make up the harmony on the spot.
The Sargents invited us over for pizza and games (Balderdash) and we had a great time. This weekend might be our last free weekend for a while – we’re hoping next week we’ll take three or four days to visit Victoria Falls! I’m so excited for our first big excursion.
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