My "First Week of School"...

Or should I say my first week of school?

The national school year officially began on Monday, October 6th, but as of yet, I'm the only professor at school to be holding classes. I showed up the first day at 8 am just to see what was going on to find the school yard empty. Over the next 2 hours, most professors showed up to pick up their schedules and mingle. As for students, there were about 15 around to check if they'd passed into the next grade (a good portion of kids can't predict if they'll pass or not after exams, and they find out the next year). Turns out the students are smart not to show up because the first week of school is reserved completely for manual labor. About 3 feet of brush has grown across the entire school yard (about 3 acres) and the youngest students are expected to clear it. The older students are smart not to show up because their professors aren't there anyway.

In the following days more and more kids were hanging around to clean but mostly to get their schedules. Tuesday morning I walked around to each of my rooms to write on the board when English class would be held. During the first week, profs write when they will be there and then the students must come to figure out their schedules. I asked the head of the English department when we would start and he replied, "Don't be in such a hurry! Next week maybe..."

The delay in the start is very much a self-fulfilling prophecy because the professors say, "well, the students won't come" and the students say, "the professors haven't started." So, I showed up Wednesday at 8 am w/a novel prepared to sit alone in my class just to get the ball rolling. Much to my surprise (I didn't have a lesson planned!), about 12 kids (out of 70) showed up to each of my two classes. After my initial shock and terror, my impromptu lessons on basic greetings went well, and I welcomed the chance to memorize a few faces and gauge their abilities. I was better prepared for my classes on Thursday, and again only had between 12 and 16 students. Even w/so few students, after an eight hour day I was so exhausted I didn't think I'd make the bike ride home!

After my classes I'd run into another prof or two sitting in the school yard and they'd say, "Oh, you began your classes?" Some with a slight smirk, others with a surprised but approving nod. I wonder if they think I'm being snooty or stubborn or just stupid. Regardless, the first few classes were an interesting test run and I really looked forward to 40 or 50 kids come week two.

Much to my dismay, I showed up this past Tuesday to find 2 students. Turns out the all the profs were having regional "formations" all this week to learn how to teach the material and nobody ever told me. That was extra obnoxious because I was incredibly sick but went to school anyway because I thought more kids would be there. :-(

So, the rest of this week I spent at the formation, which turned out to be really interesting. We practiced writing plans for different types of lessons (writing, listening, reading, etc.). We also discussed the fundamental goals of the lessons and how to build such skills in students. I found it very enlightening not just for the actual information I learned about skills development, but also to realize how such skills are often taken for granted as obvious in our own system and yet are very new to teaching and education here. For example, we spent four hours discussing and designing lessons to teach children how to identify a topic sentence. My foreign language teachers at home would never have done such a thing, because that was already done as a basic and essential part of English class. I realized that a big difference here is that every language in school is a foreign language. They are slightly more advanced in French, but French is still usually only begun in grammar school. Because most Americans already know how to speak English long before we enter an English class, we can move onto writing and reading skills much earlier.

Besides all the formal discussions and work, the formation was worthwhile because during our downtime (which was overly abundant), I got to start getting to know the other English profs at my school and in my region. In our boredom I taught some of them tic-tac-toe and dots, and during one short morning break the facilitator invited me up to teach a song. I offered a tongue twister instead, and it was pretty hilarious to hear 45 African men trying to say "How much wood would a wood chuck chuck..."

As for class, I've been assured they'll show up next week........