Post #7: Length x Width

Last Monday, I was greeted by a number of new faces when I arrived at Faith to teach. Finally, the school had enough students to expand beyond 1 classroom! The school was now spread out with a classroom for Primary 6 (6^th grade, highest class at the school), Primary 4 (no Primary 5 due to a lack of students in that class level), Primary 3, Primary 1 & 2 combined, and the 3 levels of “nursery school” (Top, Middle, and Baby class).   I quickly learned the names of the new faces thanks to the help of the kids I already knew. As I mentioned earlier, the math teacher that was supposed to be at Faith did not return for this term so I’m stepping in! It’s really nice to get to fill a need, but this position also brings huge responsibility. As much as I love math, I’m not a math teacher. I’m terrified to think that my lack of experience and poor timing of topics could result in these kids being unprepared to pass their exams at the end up the year. Still, even the math teacher with 0 qualifications is better than no math teacher.

At the beginning of the week, there were 3 teachers including myself at school. With 5 classrooms (2 of those rooms containing more than 1 class), you can imagine this made things a little difficult. I still haven’t figured out how to be in 2 places at once, but it sure would have come in handy last week. For the first few days, I was sprinting in between the 3 highest classes teaching both math and English. Once the other 2 teachers showed up, the mornings became much less exhausting and more productive.

My youngest class is now a group of Primary 3 students. While they’re not as adorable as the Baby Class students, they’re much more independent! There are 12 students in the class and each one of them is so enthusiastic about learning. As soon as I step in their class, they start squealing with excitement and shouting “MATHEMATICS!”  It’s a little difficult to balance the fun and focus with this group. This class has a good group dynamic, which can either be “seriously focused” or “crazy fun”. There seems to be no in between.. I’m working on little tricks to get their focus back quickly from “crazy fun” mode and am still grateful for all their laughter and joy, even when the timing isn’t ideal.

In P. 3, we’ve been working on measuring. The curriculum book for this unit includes activities for them to practice measuring lengths of given lines, drawing a line of a given length, and lining up a ruler correctly. As soon as we started working on this unit, a big problem arose. Only 1 student in the class had a ruler. As you can imagine, this made teaching 12 kids how to measure very time consuming. After two days of quarrel filled ruler sharing, I took matters into my own hands and cut up some cardboard. When I gave out my hand-made rulers out to my students the next day, it was as if I’d just handed them golden tickets to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory! They were beyond thrilled. Within minutes, each student was constructing lines and rectangles of the correct lengths. We learned how to calculate perimeter & area this week. Shout out to whoever donated a tape measure- it was kind of random but I threw it in my bag. It has since created a classroom supply of cardboard rulers and has been the center of a variety of math demos! 

In my Primary 4 class, we’ve been learning about time and dates. This class has 9 students and each of them puts great care into neat handwriting and perfectly straight lines under final answers. Some of them even rotate between pencil and pen when appropriate. These kids put my chicken scratch and notebooks filled with doodles to shame. I’ve been teaching this group how to convert days to weeks, hours to minutes, years to months, etc. I’ve also been showing them how to add/subtract particular number of days, months, and years to a given date. This class has a HUGE range of abilities. A few students fly through the exercises and can get most of the answers in their heads. For others, it takes a few tries to read the problem and interpret the directions correctly.  And then there are a couple of students in my P. 4 class who are extremely behind where they should be. It’s both frustrating and difficult, but I know I’m here in Uganda for these kids. These kids get left behind and the gap between what they know and what they should know will only grow greater as they get older.  At this point, I’ve identified the kids who are really struggling and I sit beside them whenever I can to go through the steps of the problem slower or offer an alternative explanation. Often times, the brightest few get bored quickly and the ones who struggle give up because they can’t figure out the problems. In an attempt to motivate the students, I started tallying points for correct answers- Girls vs. Boys style. It’s worked like a charm! I simply draw a T chart on the board and award point throughout class. My students have never asked me if there’s a prize for the winner.

The group of kids I’ve grown the closest to these past 2 weeks has been my Primary 6 class.  There are only 6 of them and they’ve all known one another for a long time as a result of going through their primary education at a small school like Faith. They love to joke around and are so interactive. They’re English is great so we can have casual conversations in addition to talking about what they’re working on. This group doesn’t have the crazy energy that the younger students have, but they work really hard. We’ve been doing geometry (finding perimeter & area of quadrilaterals, circles, and irregular polygons) and they’ve struggled more than I expected them to. It takes them a really long time to complete problems that involve multiplication. Many of them still draw out boxes and dots for simple 1 digit by 1 digit problems like 4x3.  To help them recognize the products of simple multiplication problems better, I started giving them “timed tests”. You probably had to do these in elementary school- the tests that contain a bunch of simple multiplication problems that you figure out as fast as you can. This may have been how you learned to add quickly or, if you were lucky to have as great of a calc teacher as I did, complete basic trig problems in a couple of seconds. These tests allow the students to practice their mental math and start to wean off of the 12x12 multiplication table. I created a few levels so that the students are strong with the basics before they move onto more challenging problems like 7x8 and 9x6.  I imagined the students would grumble and/or become stressed out about these tests, but to my surprise, every time I announce it’s time for “timed tests”, the whole class cheers!

I’ve tried to make the P. 6 lessons as interactive as possible. The easiest way to teach all of this would be to stand up at the board and write the formulas for each shape’s area and perimeter and have them copy it down.  I want these kids to really understand these formulas though. While it’s been difficult to find visible examples of certain shapes/culturally relevant figures to reference, I’ve managed to get creative a few times on the spot!! Pencils, pens, and hands allowed for some great examples of parallel lines and the shakes they make. Chalk on the floor and that handy tape measure (thanks again!) allowed me to explain the constant ratio, pi, that exists between any sized circle’s diameter and circumference. I’ve also been teaching English to this class. I have not been as creative with the English lessons but I’m working on it. The “curriculum book” for P. 6 English is simply a general English grammar booklet.

School starts at 7 and I teach until 1. There is a break in the morning so the kids can run around for a little bit in between subjects. I usually spend a chunk of this time setting up for the next class and chatting with Teacher Betty. The oldest kids usually hang out in their classroom so sometimes I’ll join them to chat about life. Other times, I join the masses outside and try to organize a game. It can be pretty difficult since so many of the kids running around are from the youngest classes and barely understand English/my accent but usually, a few kids from the older classes will join in and help out. They LOVE learning songs with little dances. I’ve been so grateful for the songs I keep in my back pocket as a result of my camp counselor training. While I try to teach the group new ones, they usually want to sing the same ones I’ve been singing with them since the beginning. They’re favorites are “Boom Chicka Boom” and “The Alligator Song”.

I’ve been so fortunate to have another volunteer by my side during my time in Uganda so far! Mo is a Texas Born, Australian raised world traveler. She’s a surfer, artist, extreme hiker, rafting instructor, and free spirit. By the time I arrived, Mo had been here for 2 weeks and already had an address book full of friends in her Ugandan phone. She has an amazing ability to connect with people and form friendships wherever she goes. She claims to be 19 but I’m not really sure how that’s possible. This girl has had a life packed to the brim full of heartbreak, triumphs, adventures, unusual experiences, and friendships. She would have had to start as an infant to fit all of it in at a normal pace of life! I think the catch is that Mo has a very different pace of life than what may be considered normal. While we’re pretty different, I’ve loved getting to know Mo. In the absence of TV and movies, I’ve been grateful for her many amazing and entertaining life stories!

Mo is spontaneous and incredibly compassionate- especially towards animals. Last Thursday, she came upon a man selling a baby monkey on the side of the road. Upon a closer look, she could see the monkey had not been fed in a few days and wasn’t being taken care of. While some people may spend weeks or months contemplating the idea of adopting a pet, Mo did not need much time to make her decision. She came home that night and told me she had something to show me. I was both shocked but thrilled when she pulled out a baby monkey.

“Yaz” is now about 4 weeks old. We’re pretty sure she’s a Capuchin monkey who was tragically taken from the forest and from her mother not long after her birth. She eats bananas and sugar cane and drinks lots of milk! Mo is a natural expert on everything nature related and while she’s not the biological mother of Yaz, she’s done everything she can to give Yaz the best life a monkey out of the jungle can have. I’m not sure what the long term plan will be for Yaz. Without her mother, she’ll die if she’s returned to the forest. Sadly, there aren’t many wildlife refugees here in Uganda for orphaned and trafficked animals. We’re looking into some options though and hoping for the best future for her. In the mean time, it’s been a lot of fun to see Yaz grow! I’ll include some photos- she’s pretty adorable J

Sunday night, Mo received news that her brother passed away. She flew back to North Carolina the next day in order to make it home for the services. Sam was 20 and was killed in a car accident Saturday night. Please keep Mo and the Taggart family in your prayers as they deal with this sudden and unimaginable tragedy.

Thank you all for the continual love and support. I think about home, school, friends, and family everyday and miss it/you all very much! Still, I’m so glad I’m here and grateful I’ve had the opportunity to press “pause” for a couple of months. It’s weird not having homework or to-do lists and only checking the internet every few days, but it’s been wonderful to see what that time gets filled up with instead. More to come next week!

Love,

Hannah

(Left to Right) Prisca, John, Aisah, Abel, John Paul, James, and Jovia, some of my wonderful (and enthusiastic!) Primary 3 students!

Helpful to have when teaching how to measure

Some practice problems for my Primary 4 class- girls were in the lead as you can see from the tally on the left!

Primary 6 is the place to be!

 Saturday spent at Teacher Betty's house hanging out with the kids I got to know my first few weeks! Robert right here is probably the cutest thing on 2 feet! He never lets me leave without a high-5

John Paul who I got to know early on is now in my P. 3 class! I usually find him doodling and drawing. Last weekend, I brought paper and colored pencils for the group of kids at Teacher Betty's. Most kids drew houses and flowers and pigs. When I asked John Paul what he was drawing, he explained "you're not supposed to recognize it". This kid is a budding abstract artist!

A much needed dance party at the end of the week!! 

Mo and Yaz on our first day with her! She only wanted to be held and to drink milk. She slept a LOT our first few days with her. 

Yaz loves being outside and climbing around the volunteer house porch!

Any banana left in here?