Exit The Teachers

I decided to split this up into two separate posts, as a) it was getting hideously long and b) I will be writing all about my experiences teaching today in this post so it seemed sensible to give it a post of it's own.

So after feeling quite horrified about the day ahead of me, as well as rather unhappy with how much I was going to be able to help the kids I'm working with and having spent last night planning for 5 hours of teaching, today actually went quite well.

My first class, was a Grade 11 Maths Literacy class. Essentially, over here, the kids who are more able do Pure Maths, while those who struggle to Maths Literacy, which is maths applied to real life situations they may require in later life. In total, I am completely taking over two Grade 11 Pure Maths classes, along with doing three out of five lessons a week with two Grade 11 Maths Lit sets, and a Year 10 Pure Maths class. As we're working by a strict schedule, the advantage here is that I can plan more or less the same lesson for the two pairs of Grade 11s, so that's only three classes to plan for. As expected, the teacher resumed his seat in the back of the class with his Blackberry, so we played a game involving everyone throwing a big foam dice around and then using the data to find the relative frequencies of different numbers, followed by using tables to find probabilities. Weirdly, set E was really enthusiastic but didn't get much done while the second set I took was a bit unwilling but moved through the work at a rate of knots. I ended up teaching them hangman at the end of the lesson; it's not something they've ever heard of before but they're all getting quite into it.

Grade 10 was probably my best class, working on gradients. The got quite into the material and were working well. On a slightly sad note the lesson finished with one of my girls in tears because she wasn't understanding, I'd been working with her at the end of the lesson and we worked out she was really behind, and I'm going to try to teach her graphs from scratch as she currently can't even plot a coordinate. She and her best friend/spokesperson came to find me at lunch time to explain she was upset because her parents were pushing her to do Maths and Physics, which she struggles with, in order to be employable and that since she can't understand she's being teased by the rest of the class. We have a graph learning date in my free tomorrow.

Finally there was Year 11 Pure Maths, the first class did a lot of giggling behind my back, which was a bit off putting. I'm going to have to enforce more English in the classroom. I understand that for many of them the language has nasty connotations, and have been told that furthermore kids who speak in English are accused of giving themselves airs, but too much of what happens in lessons is incomprehensible to me at the moment. The second class was a lot louder than any of the others, which is a good thing in some ways, since the kids generally mumble and are quite unconfident, making it difficult to understand them - working on enunciation and speaking up is a definite plan for the next six weeks. I had quite a lot of trouble with talking from the start, and told them that I expect them to be quiet while I'm talking, as well as to respect each other when answering questions. There was still a fair amount of commotion, which finally escalated while I was righting on the board. I don't know exactly what happened, but from what I understand, one of the girls said something about one of the guys in the class, and he went for her. When I turned around several other boys were holding him back and yelling and there was general commotion. I separated the two of them, then stood in silence until the kids stopped talking, before laying down the ground rules that we will have respect for each other within my classroom, I will not waste my time trying to talk over them and I expect them to show each other the same respect. I told them that if they don't show me that they want to learn, I will refuse to teach them and they actually bucked up considerably. They got a little talky again later, but as soon as I stopped and was silent they got that I was being serious. Anna: 1, Kids: 0.

I also feel a lot better about the impact that I will have over here, actually working with the learners, it's quickly become obvious that they are not actually at the standard they should be. Simple things 1-2= -1 and simplifying 4/8 really threw them. So while they're on schedule, there are several patchy areas which I'm hoping to pick up and work on.

So, you might have noticed that I haven't mentioned what the teachers were doing aside from sitting at the back with Blackberries. Well this is because none of the other teachers showed up today. One was not even in school, meaning that his classroom was locked and I had to hunt for a free room; the other failed to attend our lesson at all. Obviously, the point of the programme is to work with teachers to help them improve their own teaching ability making the project sustainable after we leave; clearly, this will not be happening in my school. While I was warned about this, and am capable of going on on my own, what has impressed me less is that the teachers who's classes I only see some lessons a week actually expect me to set work for the lessons I don't take. The fact that I am a volunteer at this school, teaching 18 hours a week hasn't struck them. Having spoken to Corin, our coordinator about it, my solution is essentially that I have not set work and if challenged, I will point out I'm a volunteer, it's not my capacity and I haven't got time to plan their lessons. Nothing like unpaid holiday for the teaching staff during Warwick in Africa. Also I got into trouble for not coming to take Grade 10 Set B this morning. Which is funny because they're not my class and I wasn't timetabled to take them, so essentially he is just hoping to be completely shot of all his classes for the next six weeks. Not happening. Unlucky.

To sum up - kids, generally amazing, teachers not so much.