Adventures in Namibia: Pre-Primary, Take 2!

     Today was our first day our our 5 week student teaching experience. Not really knowing what to plan for or expect, as I was still yet to be placed with a teacher, grade or subject, I grabbed some various supplies just as back up. We all piled into the taxi at 6:30am, and were delivered to AI Steenkamp by 6:45am.

     Around 7am or so, the principal and heads of department arrived, and our daily morning staff meeting began at 7:10am. Myka, one of the department heads, shared the morning passage with us. However, instead of sharing a passage, he told us a short story. The story went something like this:

     There were two men travelling from one city to another, each carrying his cross. As we all know, crosses are long and heavy, so they were not the easiest things to carry as they dragged behind them in the dirt road. This was exhausting to both men, and eventually one came up with an idea. "What if we cut our crosses? Then it will be easier." The second man refused, and continued to carry his cross, despite the weight. The first man, however, cut his cross so that is was lighter. This made his trip so much easier, that he cut off more and more of his cross until there was barely any of it left. Eventually, the two men came upon a huge valley right before arriving at their destination. With no visible way to get from one side to the other, the second man laid down his cross, un-cut in length, and walked across the valley. While retaking up his cross before continuing on his way, the first man asked if he could use his cross to get to the other side. To this, the second man replied, "Sorry, I can't. The cross is too heavy for me to wait, I must be on my way. The first man was left with his small piece of cross, unable to ever cross the valley into the promised land.

     Myka then related this story to us as teachers and our learners. As teachers, we have opportunities to make our lives easier; to shortcut various standards, topics and activities to make our teaching easier. However, what we are really doing is cutting our learners' crosses and making it so that when they reach the valley, they cannot cross it. I was truly and deeply inspired and motivated by Myka this morning, and will never forget this story and the importance it has in my own life, and my current and future learners'.

     After our meeting, we greeted the principal. We briefly discussed our placements for the day, and I was going to meet with her right after our weekly Monday morning school assembly. During the assembly, the school sang various songs and were given words of encouragement by the principal. Then, me and me 3 other peers introduced ourselves to the school as a whole, stating our name and what we were teaching (to which I said I was unsure). During some final announcements, the principal informed us that the pre-primary teacher's workshop had its last day today, so they were still without a teacher. Therefore, Jessica and I were asked to, once again stand in; and, of course, we agreed.

     So here we were, once more, in Pre-Primary. We began the day by going over names once again and repeating them, trying to remember as many of the 20 as possible. Mid-way through, we were given an attendance sheet, which helped this immensely. During a few short, quick meetings, Jessica and I laid out a rough plan for the day: colors, alphabet/letter A, counting, break time, review colors, self-portrait. Intermixed we did various songs, and by various I mean the same four--"Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes", "Do your ears hang low?", "Hokey Pokey", and the Alphabet song.

     And so we began by singing the first three of the four songs. The learners loved them, of course, as they all involved motions. They definitely began picking up on them as most of the learners were singing along by the third time singing each song.

     It was at this point that Jessica and I realized the difficulty of teaching procedures and routines to 5 and 6 year olds who do not speak English. After a few tries and failures, we opted to let me become a learner so they see how to follow along. This worked for a bit, but was not super effective. Ultimately, despite the language difference, I taught 'Quiet Coyote', which was surprisingly more effective than the other methods. Why it worked, we will never know, but it did. So we continued...

     We had taught the colors red, blue and yellow exactly a week prior, so we started by reviewing those colors. After realizing that almost every learner had them all down pat, we added green. This definitely confused them at first, but after a little practice they were doing great. Having them say each color multiple times with varying voice levels and pitches to the body parts we had been learning thanks to the fabulous "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" song definitely helped in the process.

     We then concluded with a song (of course), and then moved onto the Alphabet song. I sang the song many, many, many times--loud, quiet, slow, fast, high and low--with the learners while Jessica wrote the alphabet out on the chalkboard. We then went through each letter before pointing out the letter "A" specifically. We sent them back to their seats as Jessica wrote a giant "A" on the board. After demonstrating it a few times, I had all the students put out their arms and pointer fingers and trace the letter on the chalkboard in the air as a class.

     While I continued to do this with them, Jessica wrote out the letter "A" that covered the first 3 lines on lined paper. We handed these out to each of them with a crayon and had them start writing them themselves. I quickly realized that holding something and writing was not comfortable for several of them, so I pulled them aside and taught them how. This helped, however, many of them had never written anything before. Therefore, Jessica and I went around checking work and supporting each of them when needed. We would rewrite the letter on the next line if they just needed another example, or would hold over their hand and trace it once with them if they didn't understand the movement. After almost all of them had a page of "A's", granted they were of varying sizes and not always on the lines, we had them put them away in their backpacks to take home and share with their parents. And then, what did we do? Sing of course. :)

     Counting was next and after counting to 10 as a whole class for a while, and counting various objects around the room, we broke them into 2 groups and practiced with them. We then realized break time had arrived, and sent them outside to eat their snacks and run around.

     After our break, we decided to read them a color book to calm them down and help them review colors. Jessica had brought a book called, "My Crayons Talk", which was perfect! She read the book once through, and the learners were enthralled. As I went to prepare their self portrait papers, Jessica read the book again asking them questions throughout.

     I then called the learners up one by one to get their blank paper with their name on it. We told them that "Rudolf woud draw Rudolf" and "Alishia would draw Alishia" and so forth, as we figured the term self-portrait would not be understood so easily. They were excited to color, and loved it. However, we did have 2 of our little ones fall asleep, and we let them nap during coloring time. They were exhausted, and we decided napping learners were better than grumpy, crying learners.

     The learners all had a great time drawing themselves, and it provided me a great time to take pictures of them all. Many of them also were singing to themselves, "Head, Shoulders" as they colored. This brought a smile to both Jessica and my face as they we knew that we had made an impact. Also, by this time, Jessica and I had their names down pretty well and could simply say the name of a student when they were being disruptive to others instead of having to go over to them.

     We did have one learner, however, who did not listen even when told multiple times do so. To this, one of the learners, who speaks fairly good English, responded, "Beat him, teacher. Beat him." At first, I froze and didn't know what to say. However, after a few moments of panic, that I am sure was written all over my face, I simply said, "I am the teacher, and I do not beat my learners." I turned back to the boy who was misbehaving, as the other boy stared at me with a curious, befuddled look on his face. Eventually he quietly replied with, "Well then he may never learn, teacher." After I had finished my conversation and he was back on task, I went over to sit by my young advisor of discipline. I asked him why he thought he wouldn't learn, and he just stared at me. I then told him that I would never, ever beat any one of them for any reason what so over because I believe they are other ways to learn. I then said, "You learned the color green and the letter 'A', didn't you?" He at first gave me the same befuddled look, then smiled a huge smile before going back to his self-portrait. I will never forget his smile or this experience.

     After self-portraits were complete, we hung them up as they drew other pictures of whatever they wanted. We then took a couple class photos as this was our last day with them, and read them another story. By this time, they were all getting pretty tired and ready to go home. So, what better is there to do than sing more songs? We sang a couple more rounds of each song, at varying speeds of course, and then most of our learners were picked up. We had four that were not picked up until school was out as they had to wait for their older siblings to get out of school, so we re-read the books from the day and let them draw on the chalkboard.

     As I walked out of the room, exhaustion hit me like a ton of bricks. Although we had successfully finished a second day in the Pre-Primary class, I was tired, hot, sweaty, dirty, and hungry...I was ready to go home. However, despite the various emotions and feelings, one of them was also satisfaction that we had done our best and not cut them short.