Tag: questions

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A Teacher’s Learning Moments

Teaching is not just about the child’s learning process, but also about the development of the teacher. I chose the teaching profession because I am a student at heart, and I will get to learn all my life as an educator. Some learning moments, as recorded in my field journal on practicum and at work:

“Teaching is repetitive, structured like any other job, but to me it has more outcome. It is very satisfying. It requires me to serve as guide, practice humility, patience, love, and support. It requires me to be the best person I can be, to model good citizenship and work habits for my students. Sometimes I am tempted to give up, from exhaustion or burn out, but I always persevere because I think of teaching as a form of investment into these children’s lives. I believe that I make a difference. ”

“There are going to be some extremely rude students who can be so caught up in their own worlds/development that they will undoubtably test your boundaries. How do you react? By calling them out on their disrespect? Don’t take things personally. At heart, be patient and kind. Even the student eventually may admit that adolescence is when they are impatient and impulsive and blunt. They don’t mean to be offensive.”

“Hearing students think out loud is the most curious and amusing wonder.”

“Teaching is about dynamics: every mood and personality affects the classroom atmosphere. In the summer as a language instructor, I was tested on my patience every single day. My triggers were: students acting out, not taking their work seriously, constant disruptions, tedious slow- progressing days, sleepiness. But peace is: seeing students adopt good work habits, respectful attitudes towards each other, and confidence in their own ability to do well. Thinking about the positive outcomes allows me to stay constant and maintain as unaffected as I can be by the negative/ discouraging moments in my teaching day.”

“Students need spontaneous and flexible teachers to know that they can be confident and express themselves without fear of judgement. The classroom should be a safe space where they are unafraid to try new things.”

Inquiry questions I have:

How does the curriculum support differentiated teaching?
How does a structured classroom support learners better?
How are language learners supported in the school?
What are aspects of the school that ensure safety for students from different family and cultural backgrounds?
How can the theme of social responsibility be integrated into all subjects?
What is the role of a library program in the child’s developing literacy?
How are students encouraged to ask questions?
How can SmartBoards be better utilized in the classroom?
How does technology facilitate student learning? How can it be a tool for transforming literacy instruction?
Why are primary students not reading well? (are they?)

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Personal Self Discovery

I need to go back.

I need to go back. This I realized this morning, following the fact that I’ve been waking up every morning feeling a little empty and at a loss of what to do with my life each new day. Whatever fun dates with girlfriends and boyfriends or shopping treats or good food… they are all so meaningless in the grand scheme of things. What about questioning, Where did we get our money? How is it that we can spend so much in one day and not even give it a second thought? It really bothers me that our standard of living is this much better than those in African countries– I cannot make sense of it. And what’s worse is how perfectly acceptable it is.

The past few days have been amazing. I have met up with most of my close friends, and spent lots of good times in the rare Vancouver sunshine. But in the back of my mind, something nags me. My experiences won’t ever let me forget, even for a second, that there are communities of people on the other side of the world who are so excluded from the world as we know it. There are so many things to be done, both by and with the people there, but those who go over (like myself) almost always come back. One of the biggest questions of development is regarding continuity, or sustainability of projects. They/we come back to this world of technology and money and an everyday drive towards the ‘career’ goal we all aspire towards. And then what? What about the students in those communities? What do they aspire towards? They hope to finish grade twelve, so that they can attend university, and eventually earn some money for their families. But most of them drop out before grade twelve. Most of them don’t make it to university. And the few that do, their success makes them at par with the average student here in North America. These standards bother me, the discrepancy even more so. The fact that they are there and I am suddenly here really pushes me to recognize the systems of inequality in our world.

The fact that I have made a home there for the mere three months reminds me that I have friends there. They are still living the repetitive life that I struggled with when I was there. For what? Survival. They work so hard everyday, doing the same menial tasks to maintain their gardens and raise their children, so that they can thrive as a community. But what of development? How can they move forward? Here, my life is different every day. I do different things, meet different people, and learn new things. Every single day. What is it that propels my life forward, towards “success”, that is not there in their lives? I don’t know. It leaves me feeling guilty. It’s like I was born into a system that was designed to make my life automatically more healthy and wealthy than another life in a different, backlogged system. The guilt comes with the fact that my life and his/her life are exactly of the same essence. We are more similar than different, and yet it is our systems that define us. We live on the same globe, but we are worlds apart.

On another note, I cannot shake off the feeling that my everyday life there was more real, as if I was truly living a purpose, compared to the shallow simple pleasures of everyday life here. This technology world that we live in… it makes me uncomfortable now. It’s easy to lose myself, to end up being someone who reflects the smiles and styles of what media projects into my life. I was on my blackberry last night, browsing through Facebook and Twitter as I usually do, and I found myself disgusted at myself, thinking of how I (and I’m sure many of us) try so hard to keep up with the very latest trends. What’s the point? I felt more like myself during my placement than I do at home. I felt like I was doing something, even if something small, that made any sort of difference. Here at home, I am thrown back into the routine of completing pre- requisites, jumping through hoops preparing me for the unknown ‘career’ in my near future.

I have so many things I want to translate into words. Clearly it was a huge experience going away, and I know I have learned enough to digest for at least the next year. Coincidentally it will be the year that I graduate… I wonder if that will affect my career choice. I don’t know where to begin. I am dealing with the easy things first, to agree to catch-up days with friends and family. They ask me, ‘how was your trip’, and I am thinking of the million things I have learned but haven’t yet digested, then I answer, ‘ it was… good, tell me about your summer, I’d rather hear that’, because it’s easier.

This is all very overwhelming.

I haven’t even explained why I need to go back in this blog post. I will pinpoint it someday, after some weeks/months/years of thought. It’s just something I know and feel now. I’m sure there’s a good reason why.

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Wonderings (Weekend #1)

I wonder what it is that they stare at. Maybe it’s my clothes, which are clean of dirt and free of rips and holes. Perhaps it’s my light skin, suggesting an idyllic life wherever I’m from. Or maybe they are trying to gauge my attitude, to see if I smile at them, or wave, or acknowledge them in turn. Their stares are foreign to me; they stare because I’m foreign. My good friend B put it in perspective for me, challenging me to consider staring as a form of acknowledgement. It’s true that we in our Western culture tend to spend more time avoiding eye contact with strangers. We only open up to those we trust to be friendly. We only acknowledge when someone else acknowledges us, especially if they are strangers to us. Here, everyone stares. We are the attraction of the town—after a week here, villagers are still trying to figure us out. What are they doing? Who are they? Why are they here? At least they acknowledge our existence. Perhaps it’s an invitation for us to get to know them.

Why can she not ride the bike? Why do they wear pants, and not long skirts? Where did they get the money to pay for their glasses? For their nice backpacks? Why do they write in their journals so much? What do they do in all their spare time? The children must wonder, What are they saying to us? How can I learn to read like them? Will they like me? Do they know who I am? Will they remember my name? Their names are so foreign. Can I trust them?

In my head, I wonder constantly, Why are they staring? What do they see? Do they trust me? Should they trust me? How can I help? Do they need help? What does ‘help’ imply? What’s that word in Lunyole? I wish I could speak their local language so I can gather the children around and spend hours reading with them.

This week has been all about forming impressions. In any foreign place, I think we all make judgements on first instinct. At least I know that these impressions should not shape how I live and get to know the locals in the next three months. I know that these impressions are just natural instincts to help me sense what is normal and what is unacceptable in this town. The feelings of discomfort have helped me better understand, or put into perspective, what differences lie in theirs and our cultures. I think our projects will be designed to bridge that difference, to find a middle ground where we can share our experience and understanding to aid our self development as well as to guide their library mission goals.

To see someone foreign in such a tight little community must also be frightening for some villagers. Especially the children—one little baby boy always bursts into tears when he see us. The other children point at him and explain, ‘ohutia muzungu’, he is scared of you foreigners. Why? I think it is just because we look different. We must look like Martians to him.

One week has passed, it’s strange to think. In Vancouver one little week must seem like nothing. Here, it’s felt like a long month. And in reality, we have come quite a far way from our first landings in Entebbe airport. We’ve more or less formed our comfort zones, drawn our boundaries in the house and at work, and become more comfortable with our town. Tomorrow is the weekend, and we are heading to a bigger town, Mbale, where we hope to see more muzungus and share conversations with them. On Sunday we are painting the little kindergarten room that we are starting for the week after. Starting Monday we will visit schools and begin to implement the programs which we have drafted for the winter term here in Butaleja district.

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