Yay updates
Wednesday, July 29th
Woke up and taught 4 periods of math in a row. Spent quite a lot of time explaining the concepts behind drawing hyperbolas to the “advanced” class. The other class are now nearly caught up. They got a little annoyed when I tried to assign them more homework than they usually like, which makes me wish I had given just a bit more, in an effort to catch them up to the other class. After lunch, Sara, Karly and I gave a workshop on reflection techniques in the classroom. I learned a ton of stuff from Karly and Sara, stuff that can easily be adapted to life outside of the classroom. In the afternoon, we tried to find a grocery story, and ended up in a suburb way outside of johannesburg. Things looked a little sketchy, so we decided not to go in, and ended up getting a bit lost on the way home. I feel like I am used to SA driving.
Thursday, July 30th
Met with Janette early in the morning. Went to Melville to do laundry. Not a lot going on today, as laundry took awhile, and it took us an hour and a half to get home, as I kept getting lost.
Friday, July 31st
Went with Oral to Realogile High School in Alex township. Straightaway, we went to their Friday assembly, which was opened with sermon from one of the students, some impromptu singing, and an admonishment from the principal that selling drugs would not be tolerated, and that he had kicked a kid out for selling drugs two days before. Met with the principal, who had only been at the school for three months, but seemed to have adopted control of the school rather well. Met two Maths teachers from a school in England, who seemed a bit out of their element in the township schools. Was paired with a female Maths and Computers teacher after a bit of awkward sexism from the principal. She handled it well enough, and after some conversation opened up quite a bit. Went with her to the grade 11 Maths class she was teaching, and watched as they deal with some trigonometry. Helped out as best as I could, and the students seemed very excited to meet me.
Saturday, August 1st
Taught two CAT classes in the morning. Took a nap, and packed the car. Went to the mall to get cash, and a few last things for the weekend. As we were leaving, it began to rain much harder than it was before. We set out on our way to a World Music festival in Swaziland. It started to rain very hard, and our car had no heater, so the journey was quite cold and difficult. After two hours or so, it had begun to hail, and was collecting on the roads so heavily that the driving was difficult. Factor in the poor visibility due to the weather and the lack of a defroster caused us to stop for the night at an Afrikaans bed and breakfast.
Sunday, August 2nd
Woke up late, and continued on our way to Malkerns. Took a back road into Swaziland, where we were the only people at the border crossing. The road from the border to our destination was a logging road, and was riddled with potholes. All I could think as I drove was how much fun it would have been to drive a rally car along that road. We finally got to the town, found a hotel, and went to the festival, which was just getting underway (at 4:30 in the afternoon). Watched several acts, all of which were extremely good. Not my typical taste in musical style, but I enjoyed it quite a bit anyway. At the end of the night, we returned to our (low quality) hotel.
Monday, August 3rd
Visited the Waterford school, a specialized high school and college prep that Jeanette's children had gone to. Talked for awhile with the staff, and got to sit in on an IB class. Comprised of 12 students who had finished high school, but remained at the school to essentially get their college GE's out of the way. By “sit in,” I mean that the teacher was comfortable enough to sit back and let me talk directly with the class. I talked for a little bit about who I was, what I had studied, and what I do, but spent the majority of the time talking with the students about the impact of computers in their lives, what they thought about copyright law, and what they thought about videogames. This seemed to fall in line with the coursework that they were studying, and afterward the teacher seemed quite excited about what we had talked about. At the school, roughly 50% of the students are on scholarship, which means that the other 50% are wealthy enough to afford to attend (and possibly live at) the school. Drove home, and spend quite a lot of time at the border, waiting in line. The drive home was much less eventful, without any rain delays.
Tuesday, August 4th
Spent the morning setting up the last few computers in the computer lab. Had to change some of the computer names and IP's so that they could connect to the network. Also had to cobble together several machines, dealing with faulty monitors and some BIOS problems. Attended some more CAT classes.
Wednesday, August 5th
Spoke with Tshontsho (the CAT teacher) about my involvement in the unit. I hope to help him with some of the issues that he is finding in his class, namely arguments with the students, as well as student confusion on the topic, and on the grading systems. The curriculum we have worked out is centered on powerpoint, so I plan on teaching the students some more about slide creation, slideshow functionality, and on presentations, as well as creating concrete rubrics for grading the assignments. In addition, I am going to help him tailor his exams for the grade 10 students. In the afternoon, we led a workshop on “Learning Alive,” which is a practice of customizing lessons for variety and student engagement. We went over several techniques with the teachers. John Gilmour was up from Cape Town, so we made dinner for him. Time is even more precious now, and updates and teaching reflections are going to be even more sporadic. It's a good busy, though, but still bordering on too much.
Thursday, August 6th
Spent the better part of the day planning my lessons for the next two weeks. Pretty excited about teaching powerpoint, and I think that I have some pretty interesting ideas for the kids. Trying to work in a lot of the stuff that we have been teaching in the workshops, so that Tshontsho will get an idea of how to use them. Spent an hour or two getting the printer hooked up in the computer lab. We are all feeling a bit sick, and exhausted, so we made chicken soup for dinner.
Friday, August 7th
Taught the first lesson in my CAT plan. Students in both halves of grade 10 seemed to like it. 10.1 worked a lot faster, and most of the students were done by the end of the period. 10.2 took all of the double period to work. They have a test Tuesday, which I am trying to get a look at. Several of the kids were quite upset with Tshontsho after he made them take an accounting test instead of lunch. Apparently the test was quite difficult, and was out of 60 marks, and he gave them only 30 minutes to complete it. The students who were most upset with it complained to him, but he didn't want to hear any of it. Set up more computers, and tried to help Oral and Sara set up a projector for their geography class. They ran out of time, so the fact that I didn't get it up until halfway through the period wasn't a big deal. We went out in Melville for Mexican food, which was quite spicy, but surprisingly good.
Saturday, August 8th
Some of the grade 10 students had asked for an extra period of Saturday school (Today would normally have been off, for women's day). I agreed to supervise them in the computer lab, and 13 students showed up to write CAT papers that Tshontsho had assigned earlier in the term. Went to the Johannesburg Botanical Gardens, which were pretty, but kind of dead and dry, due to it being winter here. I suspect they would have been quite beautiful had it been spring or summer.