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A feeling for what a day in school and of teaching is like and your relationship with students and other teachers

I think I gave a pretty decent description of a day at school in that “A Day in the Life” post, but if there are more questions, feel free to ask. I didn’t really go into what teaching is actually like though. It is a challenge, for sure. Each of my three classes is very different and I have to approach each differently.

My Form A’s are kind of troublesome. Lots of talking to eachother and fooling around. To be honest, I don’t blame them. I teach them science and there really isn’t anything in their books except a series of experiments that we don not have the materials to run. Science is hard to learn without the hands on experience or a knowledge of the outside world – even if it is from TV, or the internet, or just pictures. These are all things I do not have here, much less access to microscopes or triple beam balances. They way I have my class set up is I essentially lecture Monday-Wednesday (with the double period on Tuesday). I try to get them involved as much as possible, but it is difficult, especially with the way they learn (reading and rereading their notes until they have them memorized). This is why I have science Jeopardy every Thursday (known here has just “game”) which they go crazy for, even the quietest students get way into it. This is followed by a test every Friday. Rinse and repeat every week.
Form B’s are my favorite class. They work hard, they participate, and they joke around and still have fun while understanding when I need them to be serious and listen. Math is also way easier to teach here since all you ever really need to teach math is chalk and a board. Plus with my small classes, that means lots of practice problems for everybody on the board and personal attention when doing classwork.

Both my math classes have a test for the first half of their double period every Thursday. Because the B’s like to participate so much, it makes teaching way easier. I can essentially teach something a few times, then they can take turns going to the board and playing teacher. This gives them both the opportunity to practice, help their fellow students, and make fun of me all at once. Other things I do in the B’s are board races (write a math problem on the board and have a few students come to the board to race to see who does it first) and various forms of busdriver.

From C’s are a different case. There are 12 of them, all girls. They like to sit there and stare at me like they have no idea what I am talking about and couldn’t care less. I try to make them care by playing the games that the other classes like so much, but it hasn’t caught on. Last year only one of them actually passed Form Bs, but we had to advance the rest so we could actually have a Form C. I often find that I am teaching the exact same material, using the same methods in both Form B and Form C, but with better results in the Form B’s. There is the added extra sense of stress for me because I want them to do well on their JC Exam, but at the same time, expectations are low form the teachers, so I don’t think will judge if they do poorly. The one thing I have been doing differently with my Form Cs as opposed to the Bs and As is stress the JC Exam by putting questions form previous years exams on all their tests and homeworks to try to get them used to what they are going to see.

My relationship with students. Honestly, I am still not quite sure myself. Kind of hard to tell. I think I am kind of seen as a wildcard as far as a teacher goes. I don’t beat them and am pretty lenient in general, so they will (and I am sure do) get away with more than they will with a normal teacher. At the same, I play by slightly different rules than the other teachers. Cheating is essentially allowed here as long as it is only looking at your neighbor’s paper and not copying. This is one rule that I set an example for early. Caught two girls cheating on a test, ripped them both up in front of their faces, gave them both a zero, and made them run up and down the mountain for the rest of the period. Small school, word spreads fast, no cheaters since. Some of the problem is just the close proximity of the seats. This leads to wandering eyes, chatting, poking, prodding and whatever. My new favorite thing to do (which I stole from another PCV during Phase III (I think Eric)) is make them site on the floor if I catch them doing excessive amounts of any of the above. They refuse to actually sit on the ground and will instead opt for the deep squat. That and some of the more inventive punishments for Sesotho speaking/tardiness like wall sits (although I think Kao beats me in this department. Guy comes up with some awesome things) make me a bit of a wild card. Outside of class though, the students like me, just fro the fact that I am American and speak English. They like to chat and practice. They think it is hilarious when I speak Sesotho or when I speak at my normal speed/American accent (I go much slower with a Basotho/English accent type thing so people here can understand me). Two of the boys in Form B are super motivated and like to be involved in everything that I do – whether it is in class or playing volleyball, so they are the two students I am probably closest to.

My relationships with the other teachers is more concrete. Two of them are also Peace Corps affiliated (through me, every PCV is supposed to have a supervisor – usually a principal for secondary teachers – and a counterpart – another teacher). They are married and basically share the responsibilities, which is less than ideal by Peace Corps standards, and potentially still could be if I were ever to have a problem with one that I had to go to the other about, but I don’t see that happening and it is working out fine. They both look at me as an adopted son and make sure that I am safe, comfortable, happy, and well fed. The other two teachers are younger and closer to my age (between 25 and 28). Ntate Kao (remember Ntate=Mr/sir/dad, but is used for every man. Pronounced nn-ta-tay) I have mentioned a bunch already. We are pretty good friends since we are really the only guys our age in the village that aren’t married and he is super nice guy. We hang out together a fair amount and I am sure more often as winter comes. We already have big plans for a party over break. Me Sebella (Me is pronounced “May” and is the female equivalent of Ntate) and I aren’t as close. She is kind of quiet and goes to a different village (her home) nearly every weekend so we don’t talk much, but she seems nice enough. And I make teacher #5. That is the lot of us