I still can't believe i am actually here! i arrived on the morning of September 25th and am amazed every morning when i wake up to the sound of roosters and kids playing and go to bed to the sound of crickets, frogs, monkeys, and fireflies. There are lizards in my bed.. spiders on my wall.. and i am in Africa, loving every detail! This place is just like the story books but better. The women carry 50 pounds or more on their heads and wear beautiful dresses and the men work in the farm all day with huge machetes that could take my life!
I have experienced things i can't experience anywhere else and oh how grateful i am to be here! Thank you everyone who helped me on this adventure, it is very appreciated and i am thankful to the end of the earth! Teaching is not like i expected at all. it is tough work! i have a greater appreciation for every teacher i have ever had and will have. They have a lot of work to do and definitely work hard every day planning lessons and trying to think of clever ways to teach. they have so much patience and commitment it blows my mind.
The first day i went to class i was overwhelmed beyond belief by the communication barrier. i had signed to these kids a lot when i first arrived and now that i am in a teaching setting, they don't understand a word i say. we are working on it, slowly, day by day. Since they don't understand me they just look at pictures in a book and try to teach themselves. This will not do for their exams though, so i started at the basics, The ABC's. i have about 5 kids in my class that know them fairly well but the others, it goes right over their heads. i have 18 students. I at first wrote on the board, ABC_EFG_ and had one student at a time fill in the blank. we signed the whole row over and over and then went on throughout the rest of the alphabet like this. we do this every day so they remember the order, the letters, and how to write them. they are grasping, which is the greatest feeling in the world! i can't even describe the feeling i get when a child understands and knows a concept! i feel joy all over my body! it is amazing! After the alphabet we went on to colors. I made pictures of objects with that specific color and then had them sign the color, the object and then finger spell the color over and over. today we worked on the colors: red, blue, and yellow. almost all of my students can sign these colors and over half remembered how to spell them. i love that they can recognize these colors in every day life and one of my students went up to another teacher here and told her every color she was wearing, i was so proud! We have been playing lots of games with colors and trying to ingrain them in our minds, it is tough stuff. i have a couple of new students in my class (i teach P1-the class right above kindergarten) and one of my students is 20. she is trying so hard but she doesn't grasp anything i teach her. she knows it for about 1 minute and then poof! gone.. Today i also started teaching them adding and subtracting. I presented it with objects and would add or take away. some understood.. some did not at all. i am working hard, trying not to let my students fight-which they do all the time!! one of my girl students got a pen stabbed in her hand today.. they are difficult to control because all they know is punishment. one of my boys,Philip, sticks his fingers in his eye ball sockets and just screams! he is very bright but hard to handle.. but isn't he darling!
I am working with each of them though and my goal by the end of the 2 months is for them all to know the ABC's by memorization and to be able to write short sentences. This is hard work but i know i am supposed to be here. It is a joy every day and i always look forward to the next. It is an adventure daily with a story to tell. The people here live a humble life and i can learn from each one of them. They are remarkable. Thank you thank you for blessing me with this gift of bringing hope to deaf children in Africa! I love you all!
I have experienced things i can't experience anywhere else and oh how grateful i am to be here! Thank you everyone who helped me on this adventure, it is very appreciated and i am thankful to the end of the earth! Teaching is not like i expected at all. it is tough work! i have a greater appreciation for every teacher i have ever had and will have. They have a lot of work to do and definitely work hard every day planning lessons and trying to think of clever ways to teach. they have so much patience and commitment it blows my mind.
The first day i went to class i was overwhelmed beyond belief by the communication barrier. i had signed to these kids a lot when i first arrived and now that i am in a teaching setting, they don't understand a word i say. we are working on it, slowly, day by day. Since they don't understand me they just look at pictures in a book and try to teach themselves. This will not do for their exams though, so i started at the basics, The ABC's. i have about 5 kids in my class that know them fairly well but the others, it goes right over their heads. i have 18 students. I at first wrote on the board, ABC_EFG_ and had one student at a time fill in the blank. we signed the whole row over and over and then went on throughout the rest of the alphabet like this. we do this every day so they remember the order, the letters, and how to write them. they are grasping, which is the greatest feeling in the world! i can't even describe the feeling i get when a child understands and knows a concept! i feel joy all over my body! it is amazing! After the alphabet we went on to colors. I made pictures of objects with that specific color and then had them sign the color, the object and then finger spell the color over and over. today we worked on the colors: red, blue, and yellow. almost all of my students can sign these colors and over half remembered how to spell them. i love that they can recognize these colors in every day life and one of my students went up to another teacher here and told her every color she was wearing, i was so proud! We have been playing lots of games with colors and trying to ingrain them in our minds, it is tough stuff. i have a couple of new students in my class (i teach P1-the class right above kindergarten) and one of my students is 20. she is trying so hard but she doesn't grasp anything i teach her. she knows it for about 1 minute and then poof! gone.. Today i also started teaching them adding and subtracting. I presented it with objects and would add or take away. some understood.. some did not at all. i am working hard, trying not to let my students fight-which they do all the time!! one of my girl students got a pen stabbed in her hand today.. they are difficult to control because all they know is punishment. one of my boys,Philip, sticks his fingers in his eye ball sockets and just screams! he is very bright but hard to handle.. but isn't he darling!
I am working with each of them though and my goal by the end of the 2 months is for them all to know the ABC's by memorization and to be able to write short sentences. This is hard work but i know i am supposed to be here. It is a joy every day and i always look forward to the next. It is an adventure daily with a story to tell. The people here live a humble life and i can learn from each one of them. They are remarkable. Thank you thank you for blessing me with this gift of bringing hope to deaf children in Africa! I love you all!
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