Due to our taxi being late, we all piled in the Casa Blanca care and Steve and Paula took us to school. On arrival, we were not really sure what to do. We went into the office and the staff room, greeting teachers, parents and students along the way. After a few minutes, we went back out to the main courtyard to mingle and wait for the opening ceremony. At first, it seemed as if very few kids were at school yet; we saw a lot of parents, but not a lot of children. However, as we walked through the courtyard and looked down one of the many rows of classrooms, we found all the children. Running, playing, starting to line up at their previous classrooms door; they were there, and they were definitely excited to be back (or at least to see their friends).
We then had a few moments with the principal, Mrs. Kamahenne, before school began. We went over our placements, or lack there of for some of us, and briefly went over how the day would go. She then informed us that the pre-primary teacher had to leave for a workshop for the day, and asked a few of us to take the class for the day. Of course, we agreed and set off onto a very different adventure than I thought I was going to be on today.
Mrs. Kamahenne had told us to "just read to them all day or something". We then made a quick stop at their library, which is 'organized' by grade level and is a couple book shelves total, then headed out to find which learners were ours for the day. After locating them, I asked the woman who was currently looking after them where their classroom was. The response was then, "I'm not really sure...the 1st or 2nd room down that block of classes. Their aren't any desks or chairs in there for them, though, so you need to find blankets for them to sit on."
Several minutes later, we had blankets on the way and the classroom located. The learners and their parents came into the classroom for an introduction. The interesting part about this was the introduction was done in Quoi Quoi, and, therefore, we had no idea what they were expecting out of us as the teachers for the day. Also, the students only spoke their home language fluently. That being said, only 2 students knew a few words, and the rest knew none. As the parents said farweel, a few of the kids had tears in their eyes, but most just seemed intrigued to be in school. Once they all left, the real adventure began.
We now had 19 learners, 4 teachers, no chairs, no desks and no supplies. Although their was a chalkboard, there was no chalk. Blankets had come in by this point, so we laid out the blankets and had the learners sit with us. We then collected their backpacks and started saying our names. By pointing to ourselves and saying our names, and then to them, we got the learners to say their names for us. Many spoke very quietly, and several others had names we could not decypher when they said them to us, however, we tried our best and successfully learned most of their names.
The rest of the day was the longest, shortest, slowest, fastest, hottest day ever. (Despite the few random criers, and sporadic learners who did not want to particpate, here was our day.) We quickly scoured the room to find some bottle caps of various colors to teach colors and counting with. Paula and Jan also brought us some coloring crayons, and Jessica fetched us some paper from the office, to use later.
MJ started by reading a book, and then I began leading some movement games with them. I successfully got them all in a circle by getting them to hold hands, and then began to clap. Soon, they all were clapping to the same beat as me. I then changed to stomping, and they followed. Slowly, we changed from movement to movement, and their faces turned from blank stares to smiles and giggles. We then taught the fabulous song of Ring Around the Rosie. This brought a few smirks the first time, several chuckles the second, a lot of giggles the third, and many voices trying to sing along and an uproar of laughter at the end. It was GREAT having a small team of us working together with these learners as when I was leading, Janelle, Molly and Jessica could repeat and copy so the learners caught on.
I then got them all to sit on the blankets again, and they automatically sat in front of me with full attention. This was great, as we then shifted to a new concept: colors! I held up a red bottle cap and said, "Red". At first, just Janelle, Molly and Jessica repeated. But by the third time, they all repeated with a nice, loud, resounding, "Red". I then introduced blue and yellow in the same fashion, followed by holding them back up one at a time to practice. I then handed one of each color to Molly, Janelle and Jessica, and we broke the learners up in 4 groups. With only 4-5 in each group now, we quickly could see who was still struggling and who got the concept right away. We each lead our group playing various games and quizzing the kids on the colors.
After some time on colors, we moved to counting. Although we had already counted to 10 as a group earlier, we decided to stick with 5, as we were teaching them English and the concept at the same time. I traded the colors out with each group so we had all of the same color, as to not confuse the learners, and we lead our groups once more. After some time, the students got restless, so we moved to another favorite: Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. This was a huge success and once again got the learners up and moving. Throughout all this time, older students and other teachers were entering the classroom and gathering the belongings, desks and chairs of the class that was in this room the year before. At first, the learners were very distracted, and lets be honest, so was I. However, after some time we became accustomed to the interruptions and learned to ignore them.
Another frequent break in our teaching time was bathroom breaks. Asking by saying "wee wee" or "toilet", we at first accompanied the learners down to the bathrooms. However, we soon became aware that we do not have to and are not suppose to accompany them. At first, this worried me as I wanted to make sure they made it there and back safely. But the older students were very helpful in helping them if needed, and bringing them back if they were just playing around.
It was now 9:45am. We had had the learners for about an hour, and had accomplished a lot already. They were now getting hungry and restless, so we let them pull out their snacks. Once they finished, we got them all to line up at the door as we figured this was a good 'play time'. The difficulty was explaining how to walk in a line. They didn't understand words, so example was the best we could do. As I led our line down the various pathways to the playground, we stopped and corrected the line as it began a free-for-all. I then had them put the students hands on the person in front of them's shoulders. With the help of Janelle and Jessica (Molly went to her placement in the special class for the rest of the day...which was much needed as she broke up 2 fights), we got all the students to walk like this in a straight line to the playground.
Once we were there, we stood at the various exit points of the playground as to not lose learners. However, after being out there no more than 5 minutes, more and more kids started showing up. It was now 10:00 which was break time, not to our knowledge until now. After about 20 minutes, we tried to start rounding up our learners, which was nearly impossible as we each had swarms of older students around us chatting, playing with our hair and asking us questions. I took the 12 we had found back to the classroom as Janelle and Jessica stayed to round up the rest of the little munchkins.
Once back in the class, I began to read them a story. Soon, many of the older kids entered and sat to listen. By the time Janelle and Jessica returned, our entire classroom floor was full of kids of various ages listening to various children's books as I read them. Once break ended, we sent the older students back to their classrooms, and let our kinders finish the remainder of their snacks. We then played another round of both Heads, Shoulders and Ring Around the Rosie, before moving onto our next activity: coloring. We let the learners just color on their own at first, especially since we only had 3 broken desks that the older students had left to use as surfaces.
It was obvious that the learners were not quite tired, both from so much activity and the heat, so we took some time just looking through books and reading to the kids in small groups. We then discovered the light switch on the wall (yes...it took us over half the day to find it), and turned off the lights. I then pointed at the light and said "Light". By now, the learners had caught on and repeated. After repeating it several times, Janelle then turned the lights on and said, "On", which was, of course, followed by a lovely chime of voices delcaring "on". We repeated an off and on pattern several times before moving to the chalkboard and doing the same. After name the lights, chalkboard, wall, table, door and teacher, we played a great run around game that had formed itself. When I said one of the words, they would go and touch that object (other than the light, for which they pointed at it). Most of the learners participated with this game for quite some time, then slowly began to flip back through books or go sit and color.
Around 11:15, we got the fabulous news that the room furniture had arrived. The older students and teacher next door then came and removed the last 3 desks and one chair. Janelle sat with the students against the wall and continued to color and read books as Jessica and I helped place and organize the room. We put the two 2-person desks together to make five groups of four learners, and had one group of 3 desks for a group of six. When then placed the bookshelf against the wall, the cabinet on the opposite wall, and the teacher desk and chair diagonal in the corner facing the learners. Satisfied with our set up, we then allowed the learners to take their seats--30 minutes before release time. (Although Steenkamp does not realease until 1:10pm, the Pre-Primary class gets out at noon.)
The combination of figuring out a way to get their attention and communicate instructions, and having an actual classroom set up allowed us to review already covered material and move onto shapes--square, triangle, circle. They learners received a new piece of paper and copied down the shape and said it allowed several times before moving onto a new one. We then let them draw them on their own as parents arrived. Soon, half of our class was gone, so we played another round of Heads, Shoulders, before returning to free coloring. Eventually, we had one student remaining--Rudolf.
As there was only one student left, we took turns leaving and walking around visiting other classrooms. Although just by walking to the playground before break I had realized that the classrooms seemed to be either rowdy or completely silent, it now became clear to me why--there was no teaching going on. The learners were either sitting silently as teachers wrote up their class roster or napped, and other classroom teachers had already left and the learners were running around outside or just hanging out in their classrooms. I popped into a few classrooms of the teachers I had already connected with at training days and said hi. Many of them asked why I had not come in early as I had promised the week prior, to which I explained that I had been with pre-primary all day. I received a lot of laughs, sighs, and comments of 'no wonder your face is so red'.
Once Rudolf was picked up by his older brother, who came when school got out at 1:10, we went to go stop by the principal's office to figure out placements for the following week. Since we are leaving for the North tomorrow morning, we will be missing the rest of this school week. However, we saw Shane and the taxi waiting, so we did not have time. Therefore, next Monday brings yet another unknown day for me at AI Steenkamp.
Tomorrow we leave for the North where we will visit a Himba village, Apuo, Etosha National Park, and some tent schools. As internet will not be available up there, be expecting a longer blog (yes..even longer than this one, possibly), on Saturday or Sunday.
Looking down at the students lining up in the morning.
Lining up.
Half of the lower-primary classes at the Opening Ceremony.
Snack Time
Me and a few of the kids.
Lining up outside.
Playground Time
Dismissing the students from my impromptu read aloud during break time.
Coloring time
More Coloring
And more coloring...
The class during coloring time crowded around the 3 desks.
New classroom furniture!
Rudolf
Deesha and Aslen (Grade 4 students)
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