Okay so.
Uganda's education system breaks down
like this:
First there's Nursery school, which not
everyone attends because of monetary concerns. This is like
kindergarten. Then comes Primary school, with grades P1-P7 (Primary 1
through Primary 7). This somewhat equates to elementary and junior
high combined. Usually, pupils are around 6 years old when they enter
P1, but there are still a wide range of ages in all grades, for a
multitude of reasons. Most of Uganda's industry is still
agricultural, and so many students have to help tend farmland, banana
gardens, and animals at home, as well as helping out with household
chores. That may keep them from school. Or they may have started
school and not had the fees to continue, and so dropped out for a
year or so and then came back in.
Primary school is separated into Lower
Primary and Upper Primary, where the lower grades are P1-P3, and
upper are P4-P7. In Lower Primary, all instruction is in the local
language, but the pupils do have English classes. P4 is the
transition grade where they begin to teach in English. After P4 all
instruction is in English.
After graduation from Primary, students
go to Secondary school (like high school.) This is also split like
Primary into Lower Secondary and Upper Secondary. There are four
years of Lower Secondary and then the students take exams. If their
marks (grades) are good enough, and if they can afford it, they can
go to Upper Secondary, which is two years. That path generally leads
to Post Secondary education, like University or a National Teacher's
College, which is a higher prestige teacher training facility.
Many students whose marks are not good
enough after Lower Secondary come to the Primary Teacher's College
(PTC). It's unfortunate because many of them do not want to be
teachers, but it is the path which is open to them. There are other
options, like vocational school, technical institutions, and nursing
school, but PTCs are the most common. Teaching classes at a PTC
(primary teacher's college) means that you are teaching future
teachers content as well as teaching methods. It's sort of like in
the US if you took the education department of a college and made it
it's own school and campus and only focused on teaching. Since these
are primary teachers, they review the content that they will be
teaching primary students.
We finished our two weeks of practice
teaching yesterday (Thursday). The first week, I taught two math
classes, one with another volunteer and the other by myself. Both
classes were to do with converting fractions and decimals to
percentages, and then the reverse process as well. This week, I
taught Science lesson planning. On Wednesday, I taught the structure
of a lesson and had a song to help them remember the parts of the
lesson, and gave them time to write lesson plans. On Thursday, they
presented them! I think it went very well and I was pretty proud of
them.
We had so many sessions about teaching
and classroom management and lesson planning, but it was all so
overwhelming before we came here (has anyone read Teach Like a
Champion?). When it was just a concept, I was terrified about it.
I was so nervous about teaching here,
as many of the other volunteers have a lot more teaching experience
than I do. But it worked out far better than I expected. I think
living here and being out of my element has forced me to become who
I've wanted to be. No one here knows me, or knows who I've been, so I
can be whoever I want to be. Currently, it's been manifesting as a
musician. I'm becoming known as the person who writes songs and never
stops singing. I wrote a lesson planning song, and I wrote a song for
the holiday celebration we're having tonight, which if I can get
enough internet, I'll upload a video of. But I also just sing
randomly throughout the day, and until people pointed it out to me I
didn't even notice I was doing it. And singing/dancing just works
with this culture.
Ugandans know a
million songs and dances that they can teach you or bust out at any
moment. It's just an integral part of who they are as people. It's so
great, and helps in the classroom because they are willing to sing
and dance about any subject. Today we had an end of two-week
celebration, and the students presented songs and dances to us that
were just phenomenal.
I feel like I've
got so much to say, but I'm still figuring out how to say it. So
here's some pictures to tide you over until I can find the words.
My first bed in Uganda, at our training centre near Kampala.
The view from the porch of the main training hall. Kulika is an organic farm.
These pictures are from driving around Kampala and Entebbe. I just wanted to give an idea of what traffic is like. There's a lot of roundabouts.
This is a matatu (taxi). It says 14 passengers, but really they pack about 20-30 people plus animals and luggage on them (including the top storage rack).
Water tanks at the teacher's college.
The students danced and sang for us today and yesterday as well.
The view from the front of the main training hall at the teacher's college.
The back/side porch of the training hall.
The beginnings of our Christmas tree. It has a lot more decorations on it now.
The view down the road from the girls' dorm at the college.
The view up the road from the girls' dorm.
The building where I'm staying. The girls' dorm has a barbed wire fence surrounding it.
Some of us made snowflakes!
Our schedule for today. CHAKPE stands for the name of our personal party, Christmas Hannukah Atheist Kwanzaa Party for Everyone.
Wall of folders/warm fuzzies. Basically we write notes to each other and drop them in the folder.
More performances from the students.
My current bed at the college. The mosquito net is so pretty!
