week 5

This week has been a little frustrating for me. I have not done much teaching and so I had to go talk to the assistant headmistress, who handles more of the academic side of the school. My cooperating teacher has difficulty with vision and I do not think she has been able to fully read the packet I gave her. Therefore I do not think she knows exactly what I am required to do. I have tried starting conversations with her about making a schedule and teaching, but she only seems interested in having me bring lessons in from the outside and not teach within their curriculum. I want to be teaching the curriculum on a regular basis so I had to do something about this problem. The woman I spoke to knows very well what I am here for and so she immediatley told the assistant teacher in my room to get me more involved by making a plan. I already feel better about it since we sat down and looked over the curriculum this afternoon.

Other than this, I taught a math lesson this week. I basically went through a couple of pages of the math workbook with the class. They are starting to learn simple addition, so along with the addition problems the book provided pictures of objects. Not having a real plan is bothering me because I end up teaching these little lessons with no preparation and I know that I could create more intriguing lessons with just a little more time. I have also done a ton of correcting. It is exhausting because their are so many children and you have to call them back to correct their mistakes. While your calling the kids back you have other students who are being naughty or coming up to you with quesitons. My patience has been really tested at times. One day, I was just so stressed by it, but the next day I went in with the attitude to just be as kind and understanding with children as I could be. I basically just was refusing to lose my cool with them since it does not make the situation any better.

I did a little with the sense of smell, having students color a picture that had good smells and bad smells. The students then had to cross out the things that smelled bad. I am hoping to continue on with the sense of taste next week. I have also had the opportunity to read a lot to the students this week and they really enjoy it. I have also taught a lot of children individually this week. Some of the students who struggle seem to have been given up on. I take those students back by my desk to try and get them to understand. Some of the students who see me helping others try to come up to me for the answers though.

Friday is a half day and there will be a teachers meeting in the afternoon. I have yet to experience something like this so I am looking forward to it.

As for the weekend, I am going to go to the gravesite of the first president of ghana after independence. I will also do a little shopping at the market.