A shock and relief

Personal:

I cannot tell you how relieved I am to have real work starting. Setting up the computer lab and all has been nice but I needed somewhere to be, a real schedule. I enjoy having to make deadlines and work within a certain timeframe (to a certain extent). Thus, school starting is a relief valve for summer stress. I now have a place I need to be each day along with a large amount of time afterwards where I am free to work on lesson plans and the comp lab. It suits me far better than free floating in time and space, perhaps working when someone throws a broken computer my way. I like an outline of structure or, at the very least, a project with a completion date.

On the note of language, my discussions with people are a bit different here in Kong than they were in Rambo. Thus, I find myself reaching farther and farther into Frenchy French. No longer do little metaphors or village French seem to capture the attention of the audience. It is a welcomed natural challenge, as I was finding it difficult to continue advancing in French on my own in Rambo. (Since I read Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography recently I will add a little witticism) It is easier to learn to swim when you are in the ocean than when you sit in a puddle.

Work:

A week before school started, the administration and all the teachers get together to have their little pow-wow. To tell you the truth, it can be one of the most boring parts of the entire year. Stateside, one goes to a meeting expecting efficiency, outlines, schedules and an appreciation for getting to the point. In Burkina, one comes to meeting with a schedule and the desire to be heard, even if his point is already made. Thus, efficiency and an appreciation for the other teacher’s time is often neglected in order to allow every opinion from every mouth. Too often, this does mean that each person gives their spill about a subject even if the exact same thing was just expounded upon profusely. So, it can get a bit long winded in a teacher meeting. After all was said and done, it was a five hour meeting meant to say “welcome to the new year”.

However, this meeting did not go without its drama. My community counterpart, Ben (a math teacher), did speak up in front of the group of thirty-two in order to say his peace about my teaching English on top of IT. While his intentions were well, he had failed to inform the prefecteur (principal) and censeur (one could say vice principal) before going to the meeting. Stateside, it’s not so much a problem. In Burkina, everything is hashed out and spoken about beforehand. There are papers and chains of command to worry about. You miss one step and you offend everyone. Unfortunately for Ben, he missed a number of steps. It was the wrong move for him as a young teacher and it was discussed thoroughly afterwards. Back home, we would not have blinked at his comments but here, for the sake of protocol, it became a situation. Luckily, I am a bit of a grey area so things can be smoothed over a bit easier.

As for school itself, it started today. Well, it was suppose to start today. Today was the first day kids sat in a class. By sitting, I really mean they pulled out all the desks and swept the floor with a bundle of long twigs tied together. This is nothing new. This is a typical first day. Now, just to shock my kids into getting ready for the coming onslaught, I went in and introduced myself. We went over a few points:

First, I am different than the other teachers. (It’s true!) How so?

1. I’m American.
2. I’m an English speaker.
3. I am white.

Then I went over what each of those means:

1. I teach differently so pay attention.
2. I speak differently and it may be difficult sometimes to understand so listen carefully and write things down.
3. While being white is the most obvious difference, it is also the one that does not matter in the scope of our class.

Second, bring your notebooks to class (starting with the next class).

Finally, our third point, make a name card for yourself so I can learn your names and call you by them.

One would not think that those three points were too much for a class of 7th graders but you could see the shock setting in. It was a new year and, for all these kids know, it was going to be a crazy, weird and unexpected ride.

Our next class together will consist of learning how to study. Too often, children are left to teach themselves how to study on their own. Thus, all too frequently, I see kids sitting in front of a notebook and just repeating every sentence until they are done. Those that “truly study” often do this a number of times and complete the homework which puts them ahead of the curve. Thus, a large number of kids can retain information from the class but few can process and use that information in any practical way. So, our class will detail how to make/use flash cards, make/use a translation dictionary, take/use notes (from the board and from the teacher), as well as tips to study at home (in ways that can even be fun). For those that can read French (or know how to use Google Translator) here is a bit of that lesson plan:

Les Notes
- Écrirez tous les notes dans le cahier qui sont sur le tableau noir
- Écrirez tous les exemples dans le cahier
- Notez et écrirez tous les choses importantes que le professeur a dit
- Écrirez la prononciation de mot d’anglais
- Écrirez des questions que vous voulez poser au professeur (en classe ou après)
- Écrirez les réponses des questions

Dictionnaire
- Créez un dictionnaire á la fin de votre cahier
- Partagez les mots en groupe des verbes, des noms, des adjectives, des nombres et des divers
- Écrirez chaque mot dans votre dictionnaire

Créer des Cartes d’Études
- Anglais sur une face de carte et français sur l’autre
- Lissez le mot de français et traduisez le mot en anglais
- Lissez le mot d’anglais et traduisez le mot en français
- Utiliser chaque mot d’anglais dans une phrase
- Etudiez avec les cartes en route á la maison
- Etudiez avec les cartes en route au lycée

Traduisez
- Traduisez quelques phrases d’anglais de vos notes en française
- Retraduisez les phrases en anglais
- Comparez les phrases que vous avez traduit avec les phrases originales d’anglais

Questions
- Posez des questions en classe
- Pensez des questions que vous pouvez posez en classe prochaine
- Écrirez une liste des mots que vous voulez traduire en classe prochaine


IT classes have yet to start for the simple fact that there are no IT students yet. The idea is to have people sign up for the IT classes (as an extra class) over the course of this week. After that, we will assess the situation and see how many classes/hours to build out of that. Lord knows, it may be five students or one thousand. We will see…


Community:

Gas update: none.

The heat and intensity of October has already started to set in. Thank goodness for my fan! One has to love living in luxury. I had two years of baking Octobers and am glad to get a little relief from this one. Typically, October is a mini hot season. It swelters and bubbles just before the coolness of November starts to set in. Luckily, it lasts only about a month. Thus, about the time the next big market comes the days should be less smeared with sweat.

Every twenty first market is an especially big market (well, it is at least a little bigger). Really, not too many more things appear in the market (especially during the harvest time) but people are out and about more. It is as much a community get together as anything. Thus, the day is really spent walking around saying hello to people you know. It is an interesting idea to think that we go to the market to shop, while people here go to the market to gossip and hang-out. It’s like the mall in middle school. You go, walk around, say hi to the girls that giggle when you pass and make sure everyone sees your new jeans. I have to constantly remind myself that (even if I need nothing) I should walk through the market, say hi and just be around for a bit. In Rambo, I could stay in my quarter and just talk to everyone around. Now, with a larger community and friends that are spread far and wide, it becomes necessary to make appearances at places to get that same sort of familiarity and sense of community.