week one. check.

i think i'm finally (well, maybe it didn't take all that long) starting to get adjusted to life in africa again. my first few days working with the grade 3s were learning experiences, to say the least.... i got thrown in all by myself after watching the registrar teach for only one day. as a completely unqualified teacher, this was one of the more nerve racking things ive done, and the kids saw right through me. first period (math) went smoothly enough, but as soon as we started getting into the later periods (communication, spelling and dictation) that i had absolutely no guidance for (i still dont know what it means when they say teach kids communication... i just let them tell stories), things felt like they were getting a bit out of control. the day ended at 12 and i went home and collapsed for a few hours, about ready to change programs.

the next day, i went back to school and thankfully i was paired with another actual teacher, who used to teach half of the grade ones, but because of such low enrollement (all the parents arent sending their kids to school because they're planning a return to liberia) he was out of a job. we decided to split the day up, with me teaching first period math (it seems like the simplest subject to teach) and then him teaching the rest, and me helping out the kids that are struggling. we stuck with that for the week, and it seems to be working a lot better (i dont feel like a total failure at the end of the day...).

that said, its still been a huge challenge. on the camp, they follow a ghanaian curriculum but are left pretty much high and dry by the ghanaian government in terms of funding, subsidies etc. the liberian government also doesnt appear to be helping out much, which is understandable because its got its hands pretty full with the liberians that live within the country. the end result is that it doesnt seem like there is a whole lot of direction or authority in the school and its curriculum.. it seems like in part as a result of this, the quality of teaching has really taken a hit. the kids are taught more to memorize as a group than they are to actually learn the concepts. i have no idea if this is normal for teaching grade 3 (although i dont think it is... and other teachers here agree), but it seems kind of strange. i wanted to get an idea of where the kids were at with their reading levels, and so i had them each come up and read a paragraph they'd copied off the board, and one girl came up and asked if i could read it first, then she'd say it back. not totally the point of reading, especially in grade 3.

since that discovery, i've been trying to get the kids to undrestand the concepts in math but its a totally new style of learning that is being thrown on them. before this trip, i realy would have felt weird about changing things liberians had done themselves, but the thing with this teaching is that thye're trying to get the results that i know. i'm teaching things like fractions where the point is quite clearly, to be able to do it in different contexts, and thats just not happening right now. obviously if there was a strategy beyond straight memorization that was working i'd be all for it... but it just doesnt seem to be panning out. so far, i've tried teaching a general lesson then giving them work that i go around and do with them one on one. a guy i'm living with who just graduated teachers colllege has been helping me get ideas to go along with this, but growing class numbers (while it is certainly a good thing) makes my job a lot harder. anyway. we'll see how this week goes. i'm going to start getting together with bobby (the other teacher) to do lesson plans tomorrow so i'm hoping that well help too.

outside my work with CBW, we did a couple cool things this weekend. a couple of us decided to go up to cape coast for the weekend, where there is a huge former slave holding building. it has since been turned into a museum and it was, hands down, the most moving museum i've ever been in (blew anne frank waay out of the water, not that its a comparison.. but still). they take you under into the dungeons that would hold 200 people (the rooms were no bigger than my dining room at home, if you can picture that). that part of the tour was contrasted with the castle itself, where you took a tour of the british quarters, and the site where a church used to lie (ironically enough, right over top of one of the male dungeons). we also went a little bit further east of cape coast to the kakoum national park, where we did a canopy walk through the rainforest. preeettty cool, even if we didn't get to see any monkies. we also stayed, for our second night, at hans' cottage botel, which was this sweet hotel that had a restaurant built out overtop of the water with crocodiles swimming around it. it also came with a shower and flush toilets, which was a nice change from the bucket shower and bucket-flush toilets i've been using here.

anyway. this has been a long one so i think i'll leave it at that for today. hope everything is good at home, and that the may 24 weekend was fun. cant say they really celebrate that here.