Monday + Valentine's Day

Here is a summary of my week, and I have to say it was a great one! My week began at 5:30 Monday morning, when I get up to start getting ready for school. I eat breakfast at 6 at Casa, and then we get picked up by cabs at 6:30 to get to school by 7:00. Allison, Alicia, Jenn, Liz, and I get dropped off at A.I. Steenkamp. We get greeted by our uniformed students, who are on their way to school. Everyday before school there is a staff meeting where there are hymns, a devotion, prayer, general announcements, and a message from the principal. The bell rings, which sounds like a siren, and then we go to assembly. At assembly all of the students are lined up by their grades and classes. The classes are grouped by their ability level, so 5A is supposedly the most capable, then 5B, 5C, etc. The most evidence of this grouping can be seen in the behavior of the class, but more on that later. During the assembly the prefects (Yes, just like in Harry Potter) lead hymns, the school song, and the national anthem as well as keep the students in line and disciplined.

On Monday, my teacher did not show up to school, which meant I was on my own for the day. Absenteeism is a problem with teachers. It is something that is addressed frequently during the principal's message. Teachers will just not show up to school and then there is nobody to watch their class. Some of us have had the pleasure of finding a classroom without a teacher and then scrambling to figure out something to teach them. Some of my other colleagues' teachers will also just leave the class because we are there and they do not have to teach. My teacher is good about coming to school, I have been left by myself before though.

When my teacher leaves, my biggest challenge in the classroom is behavior management. I have about 45 students in each class in a very small room that is very hard to move around in. Furthermore, even though corporal punishment was made illegal when Namibia became independent in 1990, it is still practiced throughout the school. The students do not behave as well for me, because they know I will not hit them. What is incredibly sad to me is that they will tell me that I need to beat them because otherwise they will not learn. Another thing is that the modelling of beating can be seen through the students when they beat up on each other. I have had to break up several fights inside and outside of class.

So on Monday I had some behavior management issues. Allison helped me teach in the afternoon. I wrote the word Valentines on the board and could take letters away if they were not doing what they were supposed to be doing. If they had one letter left we would play Valentine's Day Noun Bingo. My homeroom class lost all of their letters, so we did not play on Tuesday. 5E, which has the most behavior problems, was supposed to take a spelling test, but we could not get them to be quiet enough to take the test. 

In Namibia primary schools are like high school, where they switch classes along with the subjects. Each class period is 35 minutes, which is extremely short. Since my teacher teaches not only English, but also Afrikaans on Monday I had to teach Afrikaans. During the first Afrikaans class they taught me some Afrikaans and I taught them some Spanish. For the second class we just sang songs back and forth. It was fun. 

After school I went to visit the home of one of my students. Supposedly her uncle is a famous R&B singer. I got to see her home, which was interesting. It had a sheet metal roof, which was typical of houses in Katutura.  I talked with her aunt and her sister, as her mom was in bed and did not want to talk to me. It ended up being more like a conference than a traditional home visit. 

So my schedule for the week is that usually I go to Dolam Children's Home on Tuesdays and the BNC on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Dolam is a place where children can stay if they do not have a good home life. There are about 16 children there now, and I get to play and hang out with them once a week. It is amazing and is always a highlight of the week. The BNC is a after school program that is similar to the Boys and Girls Club. The children who go there get to play for awhile, then we teach class from 2:30-4:30. Last week I went to the BNC on Monday because I went there right after my home visit. I ended up not teaching, but doing some remedial reading work with some of my students. I also helped create a reading program for a couple of the students in grade 4. 

So Tuesday was Valentine's Day and I was super excited. All of my students were allowed to wear red and white instead of their normal uniforms. It was so cute seeing all of my learners super dressed up. One of the highlights on my day was going to the classroom next door to observe. My students had to give addresses to their secret admirers in front of the class while we listened to romantic music. The romantic music consisted of Celine Dion. Most of the students' addresses were like, "I want to wish a happy Valentine's day to my friends, parents, and teachers." They were all very embarrassed though. With 5E, we played Valentine's Noun Bingo. It was a little bit of a struggle for them to understand how BINGO worked. I called one word and they put up their hands and said, "bingo! bingo!" It was pretty fun though, now they ask me everyday if we are going to play Bingo. 

Since I have about 140 learners, I could not make each of them a Valentine I just brought them candy. I also had several students come up to me before Valentine's Day and asking if I would be their Valentine's partners. During one Afrikaans class I had a girl come up to me with a card. Inside of the card it said, "Dear Miss, will you be my Valentine's partner?" Then I had to check a box either yes or no. It was like a middle school flashback. I said yes of course though. I tried to ask her what being a Valentine's partner entailed, but she seemed confused by that question. I had several partners, who I made Valentines for. I also got quite a lot of cards from my learners that were incredibly sweet. 

Since my class lost Bingo, I read them the book "Wherever You Are My Love Will Find You" by Nancy Tillman. They loved the illustrations. The book's illustrations are of a boy with different animals. I had them predict what kind of animal  would be in the picture. The text was "whether you are sitting with friends" and had a picture of a boy sitting with pandas. I asked what kind of animals they would like to sit next to. One of my boys said Senovia, who is a girl in the class. She was really embarrassed and put her head down on her desk. Ah, young love. 

There are nine class periods in a day, including one reading period. During the reading period, we are given these awful passages to read with our classes. The one we were given this week was about canoes, so I taught them the song, "My paddle's clean and bright." As I sang, we mimed paddling canoes. During the song there are several parts where it says, "Dip, dip, and swing," so we dipped, dipped, and swung our paddles. Then at the end we say "dip, dip, and swing" three times, getting quieter each time. They loved it. It was so much fun. They asked to sing it everyday last week. 

After school I went to Dolam. I was incredibly excited to spend Valentine's Day with them, and I made them all cards. That day we played dominoes, like we usually do, slapping the dominoes on the table as hard as we can. Then we made Valentine's cards. Two of the girls, Bianca and Prisilla, made Valentines for everyone in our group even though they have never met some of them. Dolam is always a highlight of the week. I will write about the rest of my week tomorrow. It really was a great week last week. It makes me incredibly depressed that we only have less than two weeks left of our trip!