Monday, March 5, 2007

The finishing touch

As mentioned in an earlier blog, an opportunity arose for my third graders to write to second grade pen pals back in America. So far it has been a success. The students here have written the students back home twice now with the second round of letters due to arrive later in the week. Students here were very excited to receive their first round of letters this past week. They were even more excited to receive pictures of some of their pen pals. Hopefully students will continue to write back and forth and the experience will be a memorable one for all. Hopefully this will be one thing that I will be able to leave behind.

Making it happen

It is hard to believe that two months have come and gone so quickly. It has been a challenge and a blessing to learn and adapt to a new school environment. It is amazing coming from an American perspective how a school with few resources can provide an atmosphere for learning.

Students do not have their own text books and thus have to share school copies. Also they often have to borrow pencils and erasers from their classmates. Teachers if they wish to make photo copies need to pay. In addition, teachers have limited access to the Internet to supplement their teaching while also lacking other technological resources to help aid their student’s learning.

As in any school, some students are left behind because they either learn at a slower pace, lack concentration, or are simply are not given enough attention. However it is evident that many students at Christ the King can learn in this type of environment where there is one teacher teaching to a class of 45 students. For example, most of the students in third grade can read and comprehend literature at a high forth grade/low fifth grade level. From my perspective, it is amazing how a school make so much with so little.

Thursday, March 1, 2007

Athlete or teacher?

Ever since I mentioned to both of my classes that this would be my last week teaching, most of the students have started to show different emotions. At the end of one class, a boy named Allen began crying. Many of the students have asked me when I am planning to come back or if I could change my plane ticket to stay longer and teach. Some of my third grade students have even written me thank you cards!

During free time, countless students have asked me if I can give them my home address, email address, and phone number so that they can keep in touch. Not feeling comfortable giving my phone number out to the students, I have been supplying them with the other two. So this week I have felt like an ‘athlete’ being surrounded by students giving out my ‘autograph’. It is truly amazing as to how much a teacher can impact his or her students.

A different perspective

The nature of student teaching is to recognize your strengths and identify areas for improvement. Having others observe you help bring about these about. Over the past week, I was observed on three occasions by a professor here in Ghana. His feedback was very interesting and not exactly what I expected to here.

As I have noted earlier in my observations, schools and teaching here are definitely different than back in the U.S. so I guess I should have anticipated that some of his comments would sound a little weird to me. A few of his comments for areas for improvement include not putting my pen behind my ear while teaching because it can be intimidating to students, to erase my writing on the chalk board an eraser instead of with my hand, and not writing dark enough on the chalkboard. I guess that I was expecting different comments on my teaching style.

A tale of two classes

Both of my third grade classes could not have turned out any different from each other. One of my classes turned out to be truly amazing while the other has been a constant struggle. The first class was everything a teacher could ask for - eager to learn, asking questions when something did not make sense, always performing well on class work, homework, and tests, and being well behaved. The other class was quite the opposite by constantly talking, moving throughout the room, doing poorly on their work, and not really showing any desire to learn.

As a teacher, I feel responsible for a class that lacks discipline and is too active. It has kept forced me to stay patient and try different teaching techniques. I have learned that teaching is a craft that needs constant molding.