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| Fifteen students make up the class at Mercy Ministry Happy Children's Home in Asko, Ethiopia. The children are mostly age 5, but I'm learning that a few are a bit older. They arrive at school and change from their street clothes into these, their "school uniform." |
On my first full day in Ethiopia, I was able to observe
Robin and Beza (BEE-za) in the classroom. There are 15 children, mostly aged 5
but a couple appeared to be a bit older.
Robin began class with recitation:
ABCs in particular. Keep in mind that English is a second language for these
kids so pronunciation of some of the letters reflected volunteer instructors
from around the world: for example, “Z” is “zed,” as in Canada. Somehow “L” is
pronounced “EL-a”; “M” “EM-a” and “N” comes out as “EN-a.” Theory: I think this
may be a result of singing the alphabet (do it in your head … when you come to
L-M-N-O-P, it does sort of mumbles together into “elemenopee” and if you’re 5,
that could easily become EL-a, EM-a, EN-a. Hmmmmm … can I fix that? Does it
matter?).
Robin then held up flash cards, one
after another through a tall stack, with short words (“cat,” “hat,” “bat”);
she’d clearly organized them into rhyming sets. Beza, the full-time teacher for
the school, sat on the sidelines and participated in Ahmaric only when the kids
gave a blank stare to Robin; otherwise she seemed focused on her fingernails or
cell phone. “CAT!” the children would yell to Robin. “HAT!” “BALL!” Their joy
seemed to come from the musical chorus they created with each word.
It was clear within ten minutes of
observation that poor Robin was winging it. I quickly became intent on getting a sense of
how much English the kids understood and where they were in their development
of words, phonetics, numbers, etc.
The recitation went on for almost
an hour. At 10:30 a.m., Beza
looked at Robin and tapped her watch, indicating that it was time for “recess.”
Fifteen little bodies dressed alike in dirty, holey blue T shirts and shoes
that resemble Crocs dutifully lined up at the door and in single file,
anxiously headed out to the courtyard.
This isn’t what I’d envisioned: I
expected to be more of a teacher’s aid to support whatever curriculum was
already in motion (my American perspective). Robin looked to me with eager
eyes: “Are you a teacher?” she asked with a tone of desperation.
I’m sure my eyes widened. “No!” I
replied. Her shoulders slumped a bit in disappointment. “Have you been doing
this for a month?” I inquired. “Coming in here every day and winging it? No
help from the teacher? No direction?”
“Yes,” she replied, forlorn. She
was tired and no wonder … anyone who has worked with kids knows how exhausting
it is, both physically and mentally. Couple that with a sincere desire to teach and add value to their lives with
few tools and no direction … I wondered how she’s done it! How has she managed
to keep her motivation?!
“We can fix this,” I said as
encouragingly as I could. “I may not have an education background, but I’m
organized. And they’re 5 years old. We can do this.” Her relief was evident.
Robin and I meandered outside to
sounds of laughter, coughing, screeches of glee. Abete (ah-BEAT-ee), a
round-headed boy with eager eyes, stood out to me as he initiated handholding
in a circle and led the others in a song in Ahmaric (not Ring Around the Rosie,
but seemingly similar). A few children sat in the dirt along the concrete-block
wall that barricaded us from the dirt alleyway outside. Others ducked one at a
time into a wooden shed that I learned to be their bathroom. Beza sat on an
overturned bucket and watched.
“Any toys? Any organized games?” I
asked. Robin clearly had been reminded of something, ran inside, and returned
quickly with a long stretch of elastic that had been tied into a loop.
“I got this in town!” she
exclaimed. The children ran toward her, arms outstretched to retrieve the
elastic, which they promptly fashioned around their legs to play some form of
Chinese jump rope.
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| When the children arrive in the morning, they go into this small room off the courtyard to change from their street clothes into their school uniform. They also take a nap in this room every afternoon after lunch at 1:00. |
I meandered into the children’s
changing/nap room to rummage around for any play equipment and found a filthy
cloth ball on top of a cupboard; I brought it outside. Again, the kids ran
toward me as if I delivered Santa himself. I worked at organizing the group
into a large circle, realizing quickly that English wasn’t going to go far
here; further, everyone wanted to be the one holding my hand: I noted their
dirty clothes; how flies landed on their head, yet they didn’t seem to notice;
how goop ran from some noses; and many eyes watered. They seemed untroubled,
laughed, and clamored for my hands; I gripped whatever boney fingers landed in
mine and resumed my effort to impose order. Beza lifted herself long enough to
bark orders in Ahmaric and the kids promptly formed a rough circle. With
difficulty, I shook my hands free and held the ball high in the air: “My name
is DEBBIE!” I said, then tossed the ball to a child thinking that I would start
a name game. Instead, three or four children rushed the ball as it rolled
outside the circle. Fakodu (fah-KO-doo) victoriously delivered it back to the
group. They’re 5, I reminded myself. They don’t speak English. The name game clearly
wasn’t going to take off so I punted and we spent 10 minutes or so passing the
ball “fast!” and “slooooowwwww,” “high!” and “loooowwww,” “behind” our backs
and “under” our legs. They caught on and I insisted that the words be repeated
over and over as the ball went round the assemblage.
At 11:00 on the dot, Beza called
out and the students filed back into the room. They sat themselves in assigned
seats at small tables crammed along one side of the room. I had a sense from
their obedience that they’d been going through the same routine over and over
for at least the month of April, but what before that? What had the other
volunteers taught them? How much had they learned since their school year began
in September? How would I know where to pick up the thread if I had no way of
understanding where it began?
The second session focused on math.
Robin had made some worksheets to practice subtraction. White plastic chairs
swallowed their tiny inhabitants; one table was propped with shims to remedy
the wobble. Two smaller desks had attached benches and were more suitable to
their size. Each head bowed with gratitude as pencils were handed out. I jumped
in to help a small group; we counted drawings of fish and crossed out the ones
to “subtract.” How many remained? A couple kids got it. I used poker chips to
help Bahalid (ba-HALL-id), who could count on request, remove the correct
number of chips as instructed by the formula, but couldn’t seem to grasp “how
many are left” and would simply count all the chips again. Kalid (KAL-id) colored
over his numbers in. Yabsra “Small” (there are three Yabsra’s in the class,
“Yabra Small,” “Yabra Girl” and “Yabsra Boy”) copied the numbers from the
equation into the answer box. Another few kids added rather than subtracted.
Beza helped a different group and
Robin the remainder. The three of us jostled five kids apiece, each child
seemingly at a different level of understanding. A few finished: “Miss! Miss!”
they would call, waving their paper in the air for approval. Some did this
after every number they wrote on the page. Hewit (HUE-it) and Lemlem—probably
older than 5—finished long before most and were instructed to color in the
pictures of the objects others were still counting.
An hour. We hobbled through a
single worksheet for an hour.
This wasn’t going to work, I
thought.
At noon, the children lined up
again to wash their hands for lunch, served in the classroom. Afterwards, they
would nap until 2:00 p.m., then
have “crafts” from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. Between
jet lag and mental fatigue, I was whipped and it must have showed: “Maybe
you’ll want to take a rest?” Robin asked compassionately. I did. My head was
spinning with all I’d taken in and ideas on how to get some control over the
direction of their learning. I went to my room to lie down, feeling a little
guilty for leaving Robin after her month of carrying the load on her own and reassuring
myself that I’d just catch a quick nap and return to help.
By the time I woke up, the children
had returned to their street clothes and were trickling out the blue steel gate
to greet their mothers.
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| NO favorites but Abete ... oh my goodness. What a little charmer. Rediet is the cook's daughter ... she's kinda a pain in the butt and needs boundaries but when she's at the house during the day (we haven't figured out why she's there some days and not others), we try to include her in lessons, although we often don't have a worksheet for her. Getting photocopies has been a challenge; more to come on the topic of school supplies and lesson planning. Note the farm animal stickers on the back of their hands. :-) |
