15th August 2009

It’s nearly the end of the fourth week of Summer School and everything is ticking along nicely. It took a while for us all to get in the rhythm – we have two new teachers who had to get used to the way we do things (a bit different to the schools they worked in previously) and I took a while to get into it, too. Although I’ve taught the children before, it was in short bursts and only once a week, whereas this is much more regular (although, at 3 or 4 times a week, hardly full time!). The PSHE and Social/Emotional learning programme I’m delivering is a fairly ambitious programme requiring lots of planning, and I’m trying to make sure all resources and teaching activities I use are available for the teachers in the future, and that also takes time. But I think we’re all in the swing of it now.

I’m very glad that Summer School came so late in my time here. I’ve been in Lalibela for over 6 months now, and it’s honestly taken this long for me to really understand the culture and education differences. If summer school had been scheduled for a month after I’d arrived, I would have leapt at the chance but wouldn’t have had the knowledge to back it all up, and I cringe to think of the mistakes I would have made and the resulting frustration for both me and the students.

Not to say I haven’t made any mistakes, even now. There are many things that I’ve had to get used to, not least teaching groups of children who genuinely have no concept of the world outside their village. I’ve realised how much knowledge I take for granted when working with children in the UK – shared cultural references, a vague (often very vague!) knowledge of the world around them, an understanding of themselves as individuals – and so needed to make enourmous changes to the way I teach.

Another of my mistakes was totally underestimating the top group’s ability while overestimating that of the bottom group. This meant some very quick adjustments mid class! But I’ve got a much better feel for everyone now, and all three classes are making a lot of progress.

In my class, we’ve been learing about the body and physical space, about who we are and how we feel, and about the people in our community, including our families. This week we have been focussing on ‘working with others’ which has been a huge success. Some children who would usually sit on the sidelines and watch are now actively participating in challenges and understanding what it means to work as part of a team.

The work we have done on community has been really interesting, as I can see how much influence local community role models have on the children’s ambitions and hopes for the future. Many of the children will follow their family and work the land, and they have great role models for that, but as the local community expands many of them are realising there are other possibilities. Community health worker is a popular choice, thanks to the lovely T who is based in our school community, and of course lots of the children talk about becoming teachers thanks to the positive influence of our full time teachers, two of whom are from a small rural community like our one. Many children talk about wanting to stay in their community and help the people by providing medical care or education as they see how much it has helped them and their families. Of course, there are a few stars in our school who I would love to see become world class doctors, lawyers and academics, too. We’ll see!

On a more basic note, all of the children attending can now write their name correctly in Amharic – it sounds simple, but a large number of the children have managed to get through a year of school without being able to do it. We also spend two minutes at the beginning of every class changing the calender to show what day it is, which means the days of the week in Amharic and English are becoming embedded in their brains! Some of my favourite moments – as always – have been the children who have been struggling with a particular skill (writing their name, being able to name the day of the week) and it’s finally started to make sense. The beaming smile that B gave Ab and I this morning when he finally managed to write his name correctly from memory was wonderful! And the whole of the class got excited when D volunteered to change the calender today: although in the top group and very bright, he has a complete block when it comes to being able to identify what day it is (in Amharic or English)! However, today the penny finally dropped and he managed to name most of the days of the week without a mistake.

Of course, we have some weird moments, particularly where wildlife is concerned. Like last week when one of the boys pointed out the dead bird under the ‘storybook table’ in the corner. As I removed the bird, I had a quick look and it didn’t have a mark on it – I have no idea how it came to be dead under a table inside the classroom! Then this morning a saucer-sized spider shot up the wall as everyone was going out to break, giving a few of us quite a shock (I’m glad A wasn’t there at the time as he’s scared of spiders and would probably have shrieked in a very girly way!).

The proliferation of wildlife can come in useful sometimes though. Last week the bottom group (called the ‘Giraffes’) and I were doing a ‘sensory audit’ of the community – what can you see, hear, smell, taste, feel etc. Being a rural area, it’s actually quite quiet and you have to listen very carefully to hear things, so as we all sat there with our eyes closed I was concerned the exercise was going to end with everyone saying they hadn’t heard anything. Ab had even resorted to clearing his throat and making some heavy footsteps so that there were some obvious sounds overlaying the more subtle background ones!

A few seconds before the time was up, I saw a farmer wandering past the window, stick in hand and gabi wrapped round his shoulders. I was hoping he was going to add some interest to the activity and sure enough, a few seconds later there was a vibrating ‘mooooo ...!’ from one his cows.

Needless to say, a cow mooing was top of the list of sounds heard, but I’m pleased to say there were a few others mentioned too. I’m thinking of hiring the farmer next time I do the activity ...