HEY
November 10, 2005
We started our volunteer teaching today. We have each agreed to teach English one day a week to middle school students in the village. Today we accompanied Amy, the other American teacher. She taught there last year and was able to kind of show us the ropes. It was quite an experience.
The school is right in the middle of the village. It is completely walled in, with a gate at the corner. Inside there is one long classroom building, a separate restroom facility, and one other out building. There is also a rather large school yard with many trees for shade. The whole place is well used and well loved, but in pretty good shape nonetheless.
As the three of us entered the gate, several students darted in right behind. We walked through a small portion of the yard, being openly ogled the entire way, and stepped onto the porch of the classroom building. There are three rooms; one for seventh grade (seventh form), one for eighth grade (eighth form), and one for ninth grade (or form). We walked the length of the covered walkway, greeting students of all ages and entered the last room (ninth form).
We had been warned that there could be as many as one hundred students in any one class. The program is an after hours one called H.E.Y. The acronym is French and translates to; English Helps You. It is a program that was spearheaded by the mine specifically to teach the villagers English. It is available every night of the week at both the village school and the mine school (it’s located right outside the main gate of the mine village). There are Malians who regularly teach so we are mostly there to expose students to conversational English. The gentleman who is in charge of education for the mine is in charge of H.E.Y. (He has agreed to help me learn French!) Attendance is not mandatory, but there is an aptitude test at the end that should give students a leg up in entering university in Mali.
The school was built by the mine for the education of the children in the village. It is of the same construction as the villas we live in, although there is no electricity. There are half a dozen large windows in each classroom which open wide to allow a delicious cross breeze. Even so I imagine the place is unbearable during the hot season. There is a real slate blackboard and plenty of two seater desks. Aside from three small memos in French, the walls were bare. The floor was clean and the room was well lit.
I was nervous about entering that room. I am an alien here in more ways then one. While I have never met a mean Malian, I have never been asked to step into a classroom full of middle schoolers. As far as I’m concerned four middle schoolers in a room are intimidating, let alone one hundred. My biggest comfort was the fact that Carrie and Amy were there for support. I was relieved to discover that there were less then fifty students present. Over sixty signed up, but apparently absenteeism and tardiness are a big issue.
Youseff, the director of the program greeted the students, introduced us, and impressed upon them the value of being there every day, on time. Amy taught the lesson while Carrie and I helped out. It went remarkably well. The students were very stoic and maybe a little wary. Most seemed eager to participate, although few did. We introduced ourselves, played a game, and sang a song. Each time a student showed up late, Youseff shooed them away and informed them that they must be on time if they wished to participate. As a result we had quite a crowd gathered on the porch outside, peering in the windows and peeking through the open door. After about forty – five minutes we wrapped it up, moved to the class next door and did the whole thing all over again. The eighth graders were much more enthusiastic and had much more fun.
As part of the exercises, Amy asked each student to state their name and age. We had been told that age has a different meaning here. It seems that births are not always recorded. This leads to some confusion about how many years an individual has actually spent on this planet. Many of the numbers quoted by the students seemed a little off. I have never been a good judge of age, but that eleven year old in the back was at least six feet tall and had biceps the size of my thigh. If he’s pre – pubescent, I don’t want to meet him when he’s finished growing!
All in all a good day; I had a tremendous amount of fun. I look forward to getting a class of my own. Better yet, maybe Carrie and I can work it so we can teach together. I know I could learn a ton from her and I would love to see her in action. Perhaps, after break, we can open our schedules up a little to allow us to teach more than one night a week. In the meantime we have enough on our plates and only three weeks left until break. I can hardly wait.
We started our volunteer teaching today. We have each agreed to teach English one day a week to middle school students in the village. Today we accompanied Amy, the other American teacher. She taught there last year and was able to kind of show us the ropes. It was quite an experience.
The school is right in the middle of the village. It is completely walled in, with a gate at the corner. Inside there is one long classroom building, a separate restroom facility, and one other out building. There is also a rather large school yard with many trees for shade. The whole place is well used and well loved, but in pretty good shape nonetheless.
As the three of us entered the gate, several students darted in right behind. We walked through a small portion of the yard, being openly ogled the entire way, and stepped onto the porch of the classroom building. There are three rooms; one for seventh grade (seventh form), one for eighth grade (eighth form), and one for ninth grade (or form). We walked the length of the covered walkway, greeting students of all ages and entered the last room (ninth form).
We had been warned that there could be as many as one hundred students in any one class. The program is an after hours one called H.E.Y. The acronym is French and translates to; English Helps You. It is a program that was spearheaded by the mine specifically to teach the villagers English. It is available every night of the week at both the village school and the mine school (it’s located right outside the main gate of the mine village). There are Malians who regularly teach so we are mostly there to expose students to conversational English. The gentleman who is in charge of education for the mine is in charge of H.E.Y. (He has agreed to help me learn French!) Attendance is not mandatory, but there is an aptitude test at the end that should give students a leg up in entering university in Mali.
The school was built by the mine for the education of the children in the village. It is of the same construction as the villas we live in, although there is no electricity. There are half a dozen large windows in each classroom which open wide to allow a delicious cross breeze. Even so I imagine the place is unbearable during the hot season. There is a real slate blackboard and plenty of two seater desks. Aside from three small memos in French, the walls were bare. The floor was clean and the room was well lit.
I was nervous about entering that room. I am an alien here in more ways then one. While I have never met a mean Malian, I have never been asked to step into a classroom full of middle schoolers. As far as I’m concerned four middle schoolers in a room are intimidating, let alone one hundred. My biggest comfort was the fact that Carrie and Amy were there for support. I was relieved to discover that there were less then fifty students present. Over sixty signed up, but apparently absenteeism and tardiness are a big issue.
Youseff, the director of the program greeted the students, introduced us, and impressed upon them the value of being there every day, on time. Amy taught the lesson while Carrie and I helped out. It went remarkably well. The students were very stoic and maybe a little wary. Most seemed eager to participate, although few did. We introduced ourselves, played a game, and sang a song. Each time a student showed up late, Youseff shooed them away and informed them that they must be on time if they wished to participate. As a result we had quite a crowd gathered on the porch outside, peering in the windows and peeking through the open door. After about forty – five minutes we wrapped it up, moved to the class next door and did the whole thing all over again. The eighth graders were much more enthusiastic and had much more fun.
As part of the exercises, Amy asked each student to state their name and age. We had been told that age has a different meaning here. It seems that births are not always recorded. This leads to some confusion about how many years an individual has actually spent on this planet. Many of the numbers quoted by the students seemed a little off. I have never been a good judge of age, but that eleven year old in the back was at least six feet tall and had biceps the size of my thigh. If he’s pre – pubescent, I don’t want to meet him when he’s finished growing!
All in all a good day; I had a tremendous amount of fun. I look forward to getting a class of my own. Better yet, maybe Carrie and I can work it so we can teach together. I know I could learn a ton from her and I would love to see her in action. Perhaps, after break, we can open our schedules up a little to allow us to teach more than one night a week. In the meantime we have enough on our plates and only three weeks left until break. I can hardly wait.
posted by Bronx to Timbuktu at 11:58 PM
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