Before I talk about becoming a teacher, I just wanted to let everyone know we had a grenade bombing in Kigali a couple weeks ago. I felt at odds writing publicly about it so soon before. The scary thing was, a few of us were there only an hour before. We went to the downtown area to pick up some random things, caught a taxi back to our neighborhood, and a little while later I got a phone call that there had been a bombing very close to the mall. I believe, unfortunately, a few passed away and some were injured. I post this because I'm asking in addition to your regular prayers, you pray for wisdom for our leaders and peace with the people. That is the only remotely scary event that has happened, so please do not be too alarmed. It is a very safe country overall.
My first week could not have gone better! As the first day neared, I realized I was not nervous about standing up in front of the class or being an authority figure, but just the fact of not being prepared. I didn't have any experience "prepping" for the school year, and throw in limited resources, spotty internet, and lack of organization and record keeping from previous years, you can start to imagine how I felt the week before school. So, I have much respect for teachers, the prep work they do is tiring. Endless, really.
Our headmaster, which I believe the PC term is Headteacher now, deserves mucho props as well. He is incredibly talented in his communication, interpersonal, and organizational skills.
The kids are all really great. I guess I'm not really dealing with a normal, LRSD public school class. Half of these kids have missionary/expat parents, and the other half are nationals. The culture of the nationals is fairly quiet and obedient as well, so the bad kids stick out like a sore thumb. Anyone that knows me can totally imagine me making fun of the kids, and I do. Not in a degrading way, more along the lines of nicknames, "Really?", "So you think that's something you should be doing right now?" The most drastic thing I've done so far is make a kid sit in front of the room (in a chair of course) and read his book. Also, I am terrible with names. Absolutely miserable. My mind actually blocks out peoples names when I introduce myself. That is something I am working on over here. The culture emphasizes maintaining relationships more than anything else, so its very important for me to kick that habit. Some of the kids wanted to make up their nicknames, and after awhile I kinda thought the ones they made were awesome. Some of them are: Big Pen, Beiber Fever, Smart, and Bob. This dude actually chose Bob as his nickname. Who does that? The funny thing is, I could totally see him as a Bob in 10 years, so I kept it. My nickname for Big Pen was actually Hans, because he had features of a Russian and a sweet mullet the first day of school. But he uses an epi-pen sized piece to write with, so I thought that would be more appropriate.
And Beiber Fever, actually looks kinda like Justin Beiber. This kid is way cool though, so I'll have to change his name to something that he is proud of.
This week has gone pretty well so far. A couple hiccups with kids not bringing their materials for experiments and missed HW, but in the grand scheme of things, not a big deal. I know I am here to be a solid Christian example for the kids, spit them some knowledge, and augment my relationship with the Lord.
No comments:
Post a Comment