A few weeks of school and travel. Address also included.

Sunday 2/6

So, it's been a while since the last post minus the pictures. I hope you enjoyed those. I am still getting to know my way around blogging so I apologize there are no descriptions and if they don't look good on the page. I may have mentioned it before, but the way you pay for internet here is by usage, really per megabyte of data. Fortunately, the internet provider, MTC, does have an internet 'happy hour' from 1-5am where the internet is free. So, what I'm getting to, is that I don't let my web browser load any pictures during regular hours and haven't seen the way the ones I posted look on the page. I was just able to load them to the web page right before 5 Saturday when I set an alarm to wake up and use the internet. Also, rushing to get them up I was unable to give them descriptions before the 'happy hour' ended. I will put up descriptions asap, but until them enjoy.

In addition to a long post, I do finally have my address. I did get word today that a package sent from the U.S. on December 29^th has just arrived! I think this is normal, so electronic might be the best bet, but you are free to send packages and they don't even have to be for me. The learners would appreciate anything you would like to send as well. The address is as follows:

BRET MCSPADDEN

OMUNGWELUME JSS

P.O. BOX 2370

OSHAKATI, OHANGWENA

NAMIBA

Here is the link to the USPS international mail website with more information if you need it... http://www.usps.com/business/international/welcome.htm. Also, this sounds terrible, but I have heard that if you write things like “God Bless You”, “Jesus Loves You”, or even put “Father” or “Sister” in the address, things will arrive faster and will not be broken into. I don't really know if this is true, so I wouldn't really worry about it. Just something I've heard.

On to the post...


 

I did see there were a few questions about the last post. Please keep them coming so I can know what you might like to know about or need more information on.

First, the grades. The numbers do refer to the grade and the letter to the different class groups in the grade. Each class is assigned a classroom and stays there together the entire day while the teachers move around to the classes. My smallest class is 31 and the most a class can have, mandated my the government, is 40. Grade 8 is broken into 5 classes and 9, 10, and 11 have only 3. Overall, I would estimate the school population is about 500 students.

Second, textbooks. I was not expecting to have textbooks, but, to my surprise, all my English classes do! I have heard in other subjects the students are sharing books, but my English learners have their own. The books are also really nice and are kept pretty nice by the students. They are paperback but the students are forced to cover the books with brown paper to help protect them. The national government funds the National Institute for Education (NIED) which designs the different national syllabuses for every grade and subject. The syllabuses are different than what I thought of as a syllabus because they offer a more general outline or policy for the grade and subject, not a specific order of the class. (To give you a better idea, these are a few of the headings in the Table of Contents of the English as a Second Language, Grade 8-10 syllabus: Rational and Aims, Competencies and Learning Outcomes, Gender Issues, Links to other Subjects, Approach to Teaching and Learning, Learning Content, Assessment) The textbook has then been designed based on the syllabus. Ours have all been bought within the last 3 years. The promotional subjects, explained later, have books, but non-promotionals do not. Now, on the with the post!

As usual, since the last post a lot has happened. After a couple more changes and drafts I finally finished the timetable on the 26^th. Although for me it took forever, everyone was very happy it was done and was completed faster that usual. (Correction 2/7: Unfortunately, there has been a change. I hope it doesn't take me too long, but a teacher is going on maternity leave so they are changing the classes around. I am a little frustrated, but there is really no reason to worry about it. I am pretty much my school's IT person and I kinda enjoy it.) The scheduling here is a little different than anything I have ever been exposed to. Basically it is on a 7 day cycle so each week is a little bit different depending on what number day falls on each week day. For example, if day one is Monday, day seven is the following Tuesday with the cycle starting over that Wednesday. The government mandates how many times each class meets per grade. Promotional Subjects, classes where the students will take a national, standardized test at the end of the year determining if they move on to the next grade or not, meet more often. Non-promotional subjects meet less. For example, my 8^th and 9^th grade English classes meet 6 times over the 7 days where as my 10^th grade Life Skills only meet once.

Tuesday 2/8

It has been really nice to have a set schedule and the school has fallen into a nice rhythm. To begin and end each week the students line up by class in front of the administration building at 7:45. They sing one hymn, are led in prayer by a teacher, and are then addressed by the Principal. If any teachers have announcements they can also speak during this time. After the announcements we all sing the school song and the national anthem. Each time they have sung the school song and national anthem a chill goes up my spine. The school song talks about the learners breaking the tradition of failure in Namibian education and becoming the future leaders of the country. The national anthem is cool because it's just over 20 years old and for me, unlike the American Revolution, talking about the fight for independence seems real and relevant to Namibian life. The flag is raised during the national anthem and then the students disperse.

The school day is divided into seven 45 minute sessions that begin at 8. There is a half hour break at 11 for lunch, but I have noticed that none of the kids bring anything to eat. They do buy “fat cakes” from the “tuck” shop, a part of the school that sells candy, soda, and the fat cakes. The fat cakes are a round ball of fried dough. It's kinda like a doughnut, but not nearly as sweet. I have been eating them for lunch as well and like them a lot. They cost $N1 or about $.15. I treat myself to a soda or cool drink as they call it every few days which costs $N5 or about $.76. It comes in a glass bottle that gets returned so they can turn it back in for the deposit. After lunch and the following 3 periods there is a 30-45 minute break. After that the students are required to go back to their classrooms for study period which lasts until 4.

On most days I teach 4 of the seven periods, but one day I only have 2 classes and another I have 7. Overall, it is going well. I have done a pretty good job of having my lessons take the whole class without having them run over into the next day. The first few days were a little rough because the students have a hard time understanding me and I them, but this has gotten better. As expected, my 8^th graders have been the most difficult. By far they have the shortest attention span and undeveloped skills in English. I would estimate that less that 50% truly understand me when I am in front of the class explaining something or doing an activity. The students also seem to have grown up in a culture where they weren't really taught to ask questions so it is hard to gauge who understands and who doesn't. Many times I will ask, “Are there any questions?” and everyone says, “No.” but then I walk around and a lot of students don't know what is happening. I think they are extremely embarrassed to make mistakes. I'm trying to encourage more participation and create a environment where it is OK to be wrong, but this is taking time. A lot of times it takes me going around to each student individually to get them started and on the same page. This has been very frustrating because some students do have great English skills and I am not able to challenge them as much as I would like.

The other problem I am having is that my classes seem like they are not moving toward some sort of future goal. I feel like I haven't formed a good, long term plan and my classes are very day to day. I also have had a hard time judging ability and have introduced topics that were too complex only to have it crash and burn and start over. I think I have a hard time understanding why the students are not understanding and am a bit impatient and not prepared to spend more than a day or two on a topic. Although they may need more time, they also have a hard time working on something, but overall it's probably my fault because I don't have very good activities. Again, this seems to be more of a problem with the 8^th graders. Finally, I am trying to balance building a foundation of English by going over specific grammar points with having activities and moving on to other activities. Wrote grammar is hard to learn and to teach so I have sort of decided I'm just going to do more comprehensive activities and touch on the finer points of the English language as I go on. We'll see. As I said, I think the first step is getting a bit better plan in place so I can really get some good activities and lessons lined up. This will be completely up to me for 9^th grade as I'm the only teacher, but the 2 other 8^th grade teachers, both new to the school this year, and I are planning on meeting asap to formulate lessons and plans together. One of them, Mr. Justice Kashile, has become my closest colleague and I look forward to getting to know him more and working together through the year. Although I know that I have to get on the ball because time moves fast I think I also have to remember I've really only been teaching for about 2 weeks of the 3 we've been in school. Again, I feel good and the challenges ahead are good ones.

Although I am here to teach English and hope that I can really improve the skills of my learners and the school in general, I am really enjoying my non-promotional subjects with the 10^th graders and think that I can have an impact in their lives that might be more valuable than any one skill. In my Basic Information Science class (BIS) I am planning on having a bunch of creative projects exploring the “world of information” that will help them with English and expose them to things they have never seen or used such as the internet. Only one of my 120 10^th graders has ever used the internet and most have never used a computer. My laptop is really the coolest electronic item they have ever seen. I could not believe this and, although I'm a bit scared of the cost, am planning on letting them use my internet because the school does not have any access. They are trying to budget it in, but we'll see. Anyway, the students are going to pay $N1 and I told them I would match it. I will probably pay more but am going to try keep the costs as low as possible.

In addition to exposing them to the internet in BIS I am excited to expose them to just about anything in Life Skills. I might have mentioned it before, but this class is a basic life skills class that includes study techniques, health, career info, etc. Because it is such an open ended class and not wanting to teach straight out of the book, I decided that I could really make it a group effort between myself and the learners. This week I let the learners write anything they wanted to learn about on a piece of paper and collected them anonymously. I told them that anything discussed in class would be absolutely private between myself and them and tried to make them feel as comfortable as possible with me, trying to be less of a authority figure and more of a resource for information. For the most part I emphasized the more embarrassing things they might want to know about such as boyfriends/girlfriends and sex, but let them know it could be about jobs, HIV/AIDS, family, anything. To my surprise they took the activity seriously. I haven't completely categorized everything yet, but by far the most popular topic was HIV/AIDS. In a county with just under 20% if the population having the disease, the students seemed very unaware and uneducated about the disease. Sex was up there on what they wanted to know about, so I'm going to have to really get a good lesson together. I'm a bit nervous about that one, especially since another very popular subject was how to use condoms, but feel that this opportunity to educate is my duty. If no one else will be real with them, I will. Anyway, any tips or resources would be great.

So, that's pretty much school so far. A bit frustrating, but moving in the right direction. Everyday it seems like I have a few better ideas about teaching and encouraging participation. I'm not much of a reward person, but I am going to give these kids anything to get them moving in the right direction.

One thing that I have been thinking about a lot is how to get these students further in life. I would like to spend some time looking into the different opportunities here in Namibia in regard to scholarships and such, but am also interested to find out if it is possible to get any students to the U.S. for school. No one has any money here, so it would take a lot of work, but without having looked into it I want to believe that it is possible. One idea I have had is through athletics. I am also teaching 10^th grade P.E. where I have had the opportunity to observe the students play soccer and a game called netball which is very similar to basketball. Let it be known that I'm no expert and I realize that seeing a few “for fun” games does not give a complete picture, but some of these kids are incredible athletes. The boys are all pretty good at soccer, but a few, maybe 5-10 out of 120 stand out as having some incredible skill. I'm not sure how they would rank compared to similar aged players in the U.S., but they are good. Also, I know men's sports in the U.S. are very competitive and many times there are less spots than athletes which would make these kids chances difficult. Regardless, some of the boys are good athletes and I would like to look into opportunities.

Now, the girls. This is where I feel there is a lot of opportunity. To me it seems like these girls could dominate. Again, it's only a handful, but they are incredible athletic. Most play netball which I think can easily translate to basketball, but a few play soccer and are just as good as the boys in skill level. They don't even have the opportunity to play soccer on a team, but have learned from growing up with boys in the family. I'm not kidding when I say that one girl's soccer skills were as good as I have ever seen from a person her age. Anyway, I would like to look into possible opportunities for the students who are interested. I have thought about trying to put together recruitment tapes and make contacts, but really don't know where to start. Again, any ideas or suggestions are welcome. If this is possible, I want to make it happen.

Besides school I have had the opportunity to travel around my region a little bit more. You can see from the pictures that 2 volunteers came and visited Bernie and I the first weekend. The second and 3^rd weekend we have traveled to their villages which has been a fun experience. During these travels we have taken taxis, our first kombe (privately owned bus for transport), and have hitchhiked for the first time as well. The other day to go 40km or about 25 miles it took us two hours. Not many people have cars and, although rides are available in many forms, they are very inconsistent and might only take you part of the way where you then have to wait for the next car to pass by. Overall, it has been a fun experience seeing the countryside. Life moves slow here and I have done a pretty good job fitting in.

As always please post any questions you may have so I can try to further clarify or explain some things you may be interested in. Thanks for reading and keep checking back.

Also, I almost forgot, but I have been put in charge of the school library. I am wondering if anyone (maybe Grandma Hubbard ;) ) has any resources or tips on how to do this. There is some organization, but not really and I intend to make it much better.