Teacher Grace

Today was our first day at school! We left at 7am and drove about an hour and a half to Goshem School (along some very bumpy roads!).

We walked round the school and sat with Angela and John as they prepared to do teacher training. Just before the 11 o’clock break time the eight of us were taken to each individual class. In every class, we were greeted with “Welcome our visitors, we are class [primary 1], we are Goshem school, you are welcome here, feel at home.” We then introduced ourselves; I am Teacher Grace. Pastor Samuel then asked which one of us would like to take this class for the rest of the day. Susie took Baby Class (but luckily her teacher stayed in there with her), I had Primary 1, Anna had Primary 2, Sarah had Primary 3, Kathryn had primary 4 and Jon had Primary 5/6.

During break time we prayed and repeated many times “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”. We were all a bit nervous because it was our first time teaching and we were on our own! The bell rang and we all went off into our classrooms to meet our children! We taught from 11-1 and then 2-3 (although it was meant to be 2-4.)

Here’s a few stories from our experience…

Susie in Baby Class: Susie’s class had 60 four and five year olds! She decided to teach them phonics with some flash cards that she had made. They did some singing and Susie tried to teach them Old Macdonald, although it ended up being “and on that farm he had a cow, with a mo mo here and a mo mo there” and Susie repeating “moo”. None of Susie’s children spoke English which made it obviously very difficult but she did a good job! They played musical statues which turned into, as Susie described “a mosh pit”.

Myself in Primary 1: I began with teaching them the 5 senses. I drew eyes on the blackboard to represent ‘look’. Then I drew a nose, and they all laughed, clearly a mutual agreement that art is not my strong point. After we had finished, I told them they could colour in their pictures and they ran to get colouring pencils from the front. At this point I realised that two of the boys had tied themselves together with rope and giggled like crazy every time one of them had to get up, forcing the other one to follow. One of the little girls in my class had her younger brother with her, who cried every time she left him, I felt really sorry for her as it cannot be easy to learn as well as look after a 2 year old! The language barrier was definitely a challenge which made it harder to maintain classroom control but I survived! At the end of lunchtime I looked at Angela and said, “please don’t make me go back in there!” but the afternoon went better and at 3 o’clock the whole school went on the field to practise dancing and singing – a welcome relief!

Here is my classroom, as you can see, it is very basic. Goshem is in a rural village and they have very little access to facilities. My classroom had a blackboard, a tiny piece of chalk and some desks. There was barely enough room for all the children in the class to sit and write in their books and they often all copy from one textbook. Also there is a photo of one of the children's books after I had taught them animals!

Anna in Primary 2: Anna was teaching her class “to” “from” “go” “at” and was writing sentences with gaps in for the children to fill with the right word. She wrote “I ____ from England” and asked what word would fit the gap. All the children responded “from” and couldn’t work out what was wrong with “I from from England”. Anna also had to confiscate a tree branch off someone in her class.

Sarah in Primary 3: We all discovered that the Ugandan children repeat everything you say. Sarah had a particularly funny experience when she counted up to 100 and back with all the children (including actions!) and when they had finished, she like sighed, like “uhh”, with the relief that they had finished, and they all copied her! It’s so hard to explain in words but when Sarah told us we cried with laughter!

Kathryn in Primary 4: At the beginning of Kathryn’s lesson, she went round her class and asked their names and favourite colours. In response, some children responded that their favourite animal was God. She then went round and asked for their favourite colours, and as you might have guessed, their favourite colours were God too! However from what we have heard Kathryn seems to be a very good teacher!

Jon in Primary 5/6: Jon was pushed in the deep end with teaching the mixed year 5 and 6 class, none other than algebra! The rest of us haven’t done maths in a few years so Jon best suited that situation! Jon’s method of classroom control was to make them all stand and sing the national anthem whenever they got too noisy!

Although it was very hard work, we’ve all managed to laugh at our experiences and have definitely learnt from them! We can now prepare more efficiently for tomorrow when we go back! Please pray for us tomorrow as we head back to Goshem, pray that we can inspire and engage the children and effectively teach them. Pray for confidence and that the children will be willing to learn.

(Also for a good night’s sleep because it’s a long day!)

Thank you so much,

Lots of love, Grace xxxx