Week 6

Not too much is going on at school. I changed my schedule so that I am only in 1 classroom, with 1 teacher’s classes: switching around was nice when I was only observing, but it’s horrible being a travelling teacher. I now teach 3 of my classes, which is a full 3 hours a day of what I call a “performance.” This is why teaching is such a demanding job (at least for newbies like me): you spend the entire classtime “acting”: you must have prepared your day in advance, you go into the classroom, put on your “teacher face,” and then make sure you always act like you’re in control (even when you’re going crazy in your mind). Plus, the grade 10 class alone is enough to give me a headache for a week. I am again realizing why it was that I decided I want to teach middle school.

My grade 8’s are wonderful. They listen well, they don’t talk out of turn, and I actually have FUN teaching them: they give me a lot of energy in class, and I know I can make jokes and do fun things with them. One of the grade 8 classes got ahead of the other class (due to the math fair, more on that later), so we had a fun day where I put the students into groups and put some problems on the board (the Frecklehammer puzzle and the Locker problem were my 2 favorites). The groups competed to see who could solve each puzzle first, and I had candy for the winning teams. It was a great time. I love being able to try out new activities with them.

We don’t take any grades other than their tests and a few assignments set up by the grade head. So, sometimes it’s hard to see where the students are and how much they’re REALLY “getting it.” I tried an idea I heard somewhere: I gave a short, 5-question quiz, made sure the students did NOT write their names on the paper, collected the papers and then redistributed them for grading. I went over each problem on the overhead and the students marked the papers. Then I asked for scores (“raise your hand if the paper got 10 of 10 marks” and so on). It was a nice, easy way to quickly evaluate how much of the class really understands this subject. Then, after I set the students to work on an assignment, I sat down with the test papers and looked over the mistakes students made. By the end of the class period, I was able to go over a few major misconceptions on the board, for everyone to see. Not as nice as working individually with every student, but a lot more realistic.

I should also mention the math fair the school held on Tuesday. Students from each class (in pairs or alone) prepared a booth with a math puzzle, brainteaser, or critical thinking activity. They then sat at their booth in the Heart (the cafeteria) for 4 hours on Tuesday. Each hour, one of the grades would come in and try to solve as many puzzles as they could, winning a piece of candy if they answered correctly. I absolutely loved it (you all know how much I love math puzzles!), not only because I had all these cool activities to keep my mind working, and not only because I was able to talk to my students and interact with them outside of the classroom, but mostly because the kids had a great time. I think it’s the most beautiful thing when you can just watch a roomful of kids having FUN with math. We rarely, if ever, have the classtime to devote to critical thinking exercises, and so our students really miss out on one of the most important skills you learn in math. Anyway, the math fair was such a success, I’m going to keep the idea in mind, and maybe in a few years I can plan one at my school. Any math teachers reading this: I recommend you do the same!

I took a trip to one of the smaller game parks with some friends on Sunday. You pay a small fee per person (this place, Kragga Kamma, was only 30 Rand, which is about $5), drive through the gate, and you’re pretty much on your own. It was absolutely amazing to see these incredibly tall giraffes standing right next to the road, crossing directly in front of your car. It’s such a weird feeling. We saw several different kinds of antlered animals, rhino, monkeys, giraffes, zebra, and warthogs. However, there was one small problem: About 5 minutes after we drove through the gate, the low fuel light came on in Dem’s car. There we were, alone in the wilderness, holding our pamphlet with instructions such as, “do not get out of the car!” and “do not make loud noises.” I was absolutely terrified, but we rolled on down the dirt road at a nice slow pace. We got to the cheetah section, where you have to go through not one, but TWO gates to ensure the cheetahs don’t escape and attack the zebras, I assume. I just KNEW we were going to run out petrol (their name for gas here) and be stuck in the cheetah pen, with the big cats stalking around our car and clawing at our windows as we waited helplessly to be rescued. Also at around that time, everyone lost their cell phone signals. Fortunately, the cheetahs were in a connected pen that day (maybe they were about to be fed?) and we didn’t run out of petrol: not in the cheetah pen, not anywhere in the next 2 hours we spent at the game park, and not even on the way home. I was very impressed with the car’s ability to run on fumes. So anyway, the views from the game park were absolutely breathtaking. The weather helped with that: the slight mist we could see in the distance at one point turned into rain when we drove into it, and then suddenly the sun was shining around the next hill. Amazing. The weather changes several times a day here in P.E. I took a ton of pictures, so definitely check them out. At the time that I posted them, I didn’t have my book naming the animals; so some of the antlered beasts don’t have names yet (I think labelled them all springbok, but they’re definitely not). So I will be sure to change those to the correct names soon.

Now, onto the cultural things I feel like mentioning this week, mostly revolving around food:

Cream soda is lime green.

Also, I haven’t mentioned it already; their lemonade here is actually just like sprite.

They have no idea what Dr. Pepper or Root Beer tastes like. And they’re REALLY hard to describe.

Phrases like “is it?” instead of “really?” and “hectic,” which seems to describe everything. Then there’s “shame!” and “oh my word!” which I really like as well.

I STILL can’t get over the no-refills thing. It’s so weird to go somewhere and buy a couple rounds of Coke. I relish every drop of my soda and I feel bad wasting any of it.

And I’ve had lots of questions about wine/beer, so here we go: They don’t have “light beer” here, it’s mostly dark lager. The only brands I recognize are MGD, and imports like Corona, Heineken, and so on. They don’t have anything like Bud Light, Busch Light, etc (sorry, mom and dad!). The wine that you get here is made here, so it’s all incredibly cheap. A lot of the wine is very very sweet, which I don’t like, but in general, the wine is pretty good. They serve alcohol EVERYWHERE, every restaurant and even COFFEE SHOPS. It’s very weird to see a cocktail list after the coffee and sandwich list.