Teacher?

When I was applying to the peace corps, I remember telling my father " If they assign me to do English teaching, I'm out". The last thing I wanted was to go to another country and teach English. However, as of last monday, I am the newest grade 9 english teacher at Nyambela Senior Primary School.

How did this happen? Partially motivated by boredom. I can do ten or twenty projects between the hours of 2 and 5 p.m. However, because I have no hosting organization, the hours of 8 to 2 have always been...well, empty, except on Wednesdays when I have my gogo's group. I needed something to do during that time. so I went over to the middle school, where I have a good relationship with the staff, and asked if they needed my help. They said they needed a teacher. Specifically 9th grade english. The principal was teaching that class, but many times he couldn't be there because of his principal duties. So they learners suffered. 9th grade english at the school had one of the lowest pass rates; only 37% of the learners passed the class last quarter. And passing is only 30% in this country. So I decided, eh, Why not?

It's been two classes, and already I can tell this is going to be a challenge. How do you help kids read when they have no books? How do you control a classroom of 40 to 60 kids at a time? This is a lot different from my ninth grade english days at Marin Academy (15 motivated kids. A great teacher. Resources abound). I've also never taught before.

But I'm giving it my best shot, and so far its been going okay. I have started the learners doing daily free writing, taught them hangman and ran a debate whether boys are better than girls. The last volunteer started a library which has some textbooks, specifically devoted to english, so I'm going to be combing through them to see if there is anything useful. The bar is pretty low, so if I can increase the number passing to 50%, I'll consider myself a great success. I also probably had the worst that could happen to a teacher happen...my skirt fell down in the middle of class (wrap skirts can be a doozy). But after the laughter died down, I kept on teaching and the kids still paid attention. So, I've already hit rock bottom. Nowhere to go but up.

I've also learned during my seven months that development work is egoless. My job is to help the community the best I can. And if it means teaching English...call me a teacher.