Today was such an informative day!! One of my favorites so far! Some Peace Corps volunteers came and did sessions today and it was wonderful! Each of them have extended for 1 year so this is their third year in service, they go back home in September. I can’t imagine being away from home for 2 whole years and then extending for a year longer. But in their defense they are doing such neat stuff. The difference between the Peace Corps and World Teach is that they are placed alone where as we are paired with a roommate. I’m sure that isolation has to be very difficult at times. The volunteers ran sessions on teaching large multilevel classes and classroom management. They had us write down our biggest concerns when teaching. My group put lots of things but our two main ones were time management, (how to really get through the five steps of the lesson plan in the 40-minute block time period), and gaining respect and authority without using the stick. Will the students take us seriously if they know we will not use the stick? It used to be that the only legal thing to administer was 3-4 sticks to the hand per student, and the teacher giving the sticks could not be of the same sex of the student. But not since 65% of the country has failed their National Exams the country has lifted this restriction and now there are no restrictions on corporal punishments in school so it can get really out of hand. They now believe that an increase in corporal punishment will help to increase grades. I thought some good ideas of punishment instead of the stick was to have the student stand in the corner, or do a good jar/bad jar so if they do something bad they have to put their name in the bad jar and at the end of the day you will draw one name out of each jar. You will give a reward to the student from the good jar and give a punishment of some sort of cleaning to the student of the bad jar. They also suggested just walking out of the classroom if the class is out of hand and won’t listen. They said this is very effective because they will all get very quiet and want you to come back.

They also stressed how important it is to establish rules in the classroom. I can’t decide how exactly I am going to do this. One of the volunteers said she spent the first week going over rules because it takes a while for all the students to finally get to school they all kind of just trickle in the first week. But another volunteer said he just demonstrated his rules of his classroom as he went along throughout the year. I am so used to being given a syllabus and knowing what is expected of me. I could do that I would just have to go into town and make copies for each student. I will have to decide in a few weeks.

They pointed out that it is also a good idea to have some extra supplies on hand like some exercise notebooks (this is what they write in each day) and pencils in case your students need some. I am also going to give them a pretest the first week so I can gauge where they are at in there curriculum and what I need to review or what I can skip over because they already know. None of the volunteers after 3 years have ever finished the syllabi even with extra sessions on the weekend so that is encouraging just because it is so overwhelming.

They also discussed how much we take for granted test taking skills and how we should incorporate teaching the students this as much as we can before the National Exam because they struggle with this so much. They said they never try on something they do not know they will always leave it blank. But they do not realize or cannot get it in their head that they are not penalized for guessing. They also use a lot of words twice for matching sections, they do not realize that once you use one word you cannot use it again you cross it out. So the more we teach them how to do these things or make our tests like this it will help them. Also, never let them turn tests or quizzes in with blank answers, make them write something in even if it’s guessing. This will reinforce never to leave an answer blank.

It was really interesting to hear how much information these students are not getting from grade to grade. I learned that for a teacher to teach secondary school she has to pass secondary school with all D’s. For a teacher to teach primary school she has to pass secondary school with all F’s. This is no joke. These educators are teaching students.

We went to lunch at the local spot we have been to near the hotel where our sessions are. I got eggs and mango avocado juice! After lunch we came back and had a Swahili lesson. Then the Peace Corps volunteers came back and we broke up into two groups one English and one Math/Science. They showed us different interactive games we could do with the students to teach them theories of math and science. They had some really creative math games, which I wrote down in case I teach math. I loveddd the Biology examples. They gave one for when you are teaching the parts of the cell. They said I could pass out large pieces of flip chart (poster size paper) to each group of students (maybe groups of 7) and have them go around the school and outside and find different items to construct a cell. Give them glue sticks and have them make their cell and write the functions of each part, then each group will present their cell to the class. You could also do the same activity for a neuron. For chemistry they lit a candle and showed us some neat things we could do with heat. I get a little nervous just because I am going to be having to do labs with these science classes. So they were talking about how I will have to get my students to bring me lots of dead animals and pump them with formaldehyde so my students can dissect them.!! Uhhh just a tad bit nervous about that. Stuff like that that I will just have to pick up on and these students will be relying on me to know how to do it like the back of my hand.

After sessions a few of us went to this little food court area on the main street downtown Dar. I got Indian food, vegetable curry and naan! We came back and hung out and went to bed.