Scheme of Work

School started again the 17^th of July, and my new start came with a new term completely different from the last. To be honest, I felt quite useless last semester, not having enough work and not feeling I was doing it so well left me feeling completely unproductive. It was tough to go from over-active university student to underemployed (and unexperienced) teacher in another country. I think I had a little bit of motivation-lack last semester, too, because I wasn't sure how helpful I could be in this country teaching some of the already most educated students. Remembering my “Oprah approach” from university (when the atmosphere was low in our senior year dorm, I'd call for “Oprah” where we could only say positive things – I think Katie O and I appreciated it the most, right KTO?). I started this with myself (failing a lot at first, but it has helped my attitude for sure). How can I best help these young minds, the very ones sitting right in front of me?

This term I began teaching Values/Ethics instead of Study Skills/Speech. This is my chance to really get into their minds and help them think differently, the way my own college experienced changed me completely. This class is an absolute challenge for me, because of my own hopes and goals, and consequently I'm doing ten times more work to design creative lesson plans that not only my students will enjoy, but that I'll enjoy teaching. This is kind of like being back at school for me, researching, taking notes, and preparing presentations – I love it. My empty Mondays now fly by because of all the reading and thinking and planning. I'm exhausted when I go home now, but in a “I've done something today!” kind of way.

Now how do you teach a Values/Ethics class to a group of Tanzanian high schoolers? I'm still asking myself that question, but each class is a trial run for the next so I can fine-tune things. Their school song has set up my scheme of work nicely: the tune includes, “some of the values we are called to cherish are love, compassion, truth, justice, hardworking, and respect for others, kindness, sharing, and honesty.” Bam! There's our syllabus, touching on each value and how we can use these to make better decisions for our own lives and for many social issues happening in our world today. (I'm praying I do justice to this hefty objective).

I'm loving this class though, because as I challenge the students to think about how they are generous or loving people, I find myself asking myself the same questions. It has unintentionally become a sort of personal evaluation of my own life, my life here, and a examination of my conscience. How lucky am I?

We are finally ready to begin our Religion course and I have been trying to plan a general outline for our semester. I have a team of three other teachers (Sean, Victor and Antonie who are scholastics) who will help teach the class to the other streams. This has been interesting all in its own, trying to coordinate with the others and plan useful lessons, considering the class is only one hour every Friday.

Besides the English lessons Sean and I assist with (we pull struggling students from each stream twice a week to work individually with their English), we are trying to revamp our “Advisement” class to become much more intentionally a service learning class, mimicking experiences we've had at our Jesuit universities for better reflection after service at the Cheshire home. From personal experience, it is nearly pointless to do any service if there is not a personal and spiritual reflection coinciding with the work you've done. It is helping the students process things.

So though I still have daily challenges (when lessons flop, or when I feel unappreciated by the students or other teachers), things are definitely getting better. This is where you say, “That's what real life is, Laura. Difficult people never go away.” And this is when I say, “Bring it on.”