School

School Days
So school has been in session for two weeks now… and I can say without any kind of doubt that I was lucky to be teaching in America. The resources for American teachers is amazing! Here… you have to be real creative to teach! Not that that is always a bad thing….
I saw a teacher using sea shells as counters for math and it was perfect! He was also using a wooden stool to act like a dry erase board with chalk.
The classrooms have a lack of books, and the teachers find ways to make due. They have stories from their curriculum books that they put on chart paper to teach with. Some schools have a library. My school has several dozen books… but most are the one sentence per page books that we give to kindergarteners in America.
At the thrift store I bought some books to share with my class including a few Dr. Seuss ones. I introduced read aloud to the kids and they seemed to love them. They do not get many books with pictures here…so it was a nice change for them.
The school day here is stressful because of how different it is to what we think of as being normal. I was given the schemes book to teach English…and the last time it was updated was in 1990. So the stories in it are old, and I am not sure are completely relevant to the children anymore. I am trying to make due and teach it as close to what they know of as being normal as possible…
I also taught social sciences the other day when a teacher was out and the schemes book I was given was from 1984. I do not know if Samoa has redone their curriculum since then, but that was all the school had.
Another time that I helped out when a teacher was not there, there was no schemes book, so I just made up the lesson based upon what I thought they students needed to know. (adding and subtracting seems to need help across the board.)
In America we have to bring in supplies for the classroom to make the living environment better for the class. They bring in tissue boxes, paper towels and other small items. Students need to do that here too…only they bring in brooms and mats (both homemade) and their own toilet paper (the bathroom is finally up and running again!)
Hearing about corporal punishment and seeing it are two different things. There is the slight hit….which I received when a student was trying to get my attention. (She did not appreciate me telling her that she should not hit her teachers in any form. ) There are also the slight taps with objects such as brooms. I have also seen the kids dragged into the teachers office to be slapped and once when I was teaching another teacher came into my classroom to hit a few of the boys.
It is mentally frustrating to deal with these issues and I am glad I have the support of others to help me keep my straight.