Hey everyone! Sam here. Sorry I haven’t been able to update until now! As you can imagine, internet can be hard to find in a third world country… Unless you know where to look! Yesterday, I bought a mobile internet modem from one of the cell phone providers in Sierra Leone, called Airtel. For a mere 390,000 Le (that’s about $100 after exchanging money) I can connect to the internet anywhere that I have Airtel coverage. It’s pretty amazing. All the other trainees are jealous, and also quite eager to pay me so they can check their messages. Haha. I’ve decided not to make a profit, since they are all in the same boat as I am.
Anywho, I’ve been in Makeni, Sierra Leone for nearly two months now. It’s a pretty interesting town- the 5th largest in Sierra Leone. Every day I walk about 20 minutes to get to the town hall, where we hold our 8-5 training sessions. Sessions tend to ere on the tedious side, but all-in-all I’m having a good time. We started Summer School for children in Makeni this last Monday. They were hesitant to participate in a class led by a strange “Oporto,” (Tribal slang for “white man”) but after the first couple of days, they were active and rowdy just like kids back in America. We did some fun exercises with planetary bodies and constellations, an awesome “basketball review” class on Thursday, then had a test covering that material on Friday. Moooost of the students bombed the test, which is unfortunate, because they were the EXACT questions from the review that they did so well on. I think next time I will make the test multiple choice, as I don’t think that many of them have the necessary English language skills to complete a fill-in-the-blank test. It’s a learning process for all of us, and every day we learn a lot about how to better convey information to our students. For example, where one might say that “Science” is the systematic study of the natural world (or something), my definition ran along the lines of “a process we use to get answers by asking questions that can be tested with facts that can be proven.” It’s kind of a mouthful, but we’re all trying to figure out ways to explain things to students who don’t have a vocabulary equivalent to the material being taught (always open to suggestions from all the teachers out there). A special challenge here is that students (and adults) don’t really understand the concept of communicating by analogy. This makes not only the language barrier significant, but also complicates teaching methods…
Sometimes it’s hard to adequately describe what Sierra Leone is like to people back home. I’ve been immersed in it so long now that it doesn’t seem so strange. In fact, the idea of driving down an interstate that’s not populated by daredevil motorcyclists or walking through a clean neighborhood with no one outside is what really seems weird. Haha. I’m staying with my host family (the Kabba family) in Makeni for the remainder of training. I’ve been getting along with them alright, but I think they don’t like how much I have to work. They seem to get annoyed when I come back late and go to my room to write lesson plans/grade papers. Oh well. Only 3 more quick weeks left of training! I get sworn-in on August 12th, Nicole’s birthday! She graduated from HSU on mine, so it’s only fair ;).
Hmm, I think I’m probably stretching the patience of my lovely readers. In summary, I’m having a good time. Sometimes things are hard; sometimes they’re really hard, but I’m happy to be here. I love teaching Integrated Science so far, and I’m excited to move into my own house and stop being babied J. Thanks for making it to the end of this post! Feel free to ask questions or give input…
Love, Sam
What a great post -- you're elliquent! As far as not grasping analogies, that's even a new thing for typical 8th graders here. You could try the "group metaphor" I did with 9th, where they each chose an entity (could be a blade of grass or a pasture, very different) that they as a group are like when you extend out the comparison. Technically, that's a simile, but it works. Your class of 2006, as a I recall, was an amusement park. Think of "life's like a box of chocolates" and you get it. Each student came up with a different one; then we voted. Great drawerings too :-) What this does is stretch a symbol, where something concrete represents something abstract -- and it's fun!
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