Sooooo, end of week 2. Let's review. We spent a lot of time at our school, Mateves Secondary. After spending time here, I will never again complain about our educational system. The classes are crammed, there's only 1 textbook per class, I still have yet to see a mwalimu (teacher) anywhere. We have 3-5 kids at our homestay every night and they want to learn so badly, but they simply don't have anyone to teach them. There are kids that are in upper grades in high school that still do not know how to solve X+3 = 4. Nobody explains anything and they are the ones that suffer and get sent back in school to fail over and over again. This country needs a total overhaul of its educational system. Anyways, enough of my rant. In addition, we started tutoring at the OHS site. I am tutoring a girl named Miriam in math. She is incredibly smart and excited about subjects that she knows, but she's also very hard on herself and I find myself just trying to get her not to shut down at problems she doesn't know how to solve. Hopefully i'll be able to improve her self-confidence a little bit over the next few weeks. Anyways, it has been a pretty quiet week. We're doing a hike tomorrow and then next weekend we're going to Lingai (sp?), an active volcano. We're gonna spend the night in a campsite nearby, spend the next day exploring, and then we'll do an 8-9 night hike so we can watch the sun rise in the morning. It's supposed to be incredible so i'm really looking forward to it. It's kind of strange that time moves slowly and quickly at the same time here. It feels like i've been here for such a long time, but it also feels like i've done so little and I know there's so much more left for me to do over the next 6 weeks. So that's my story, I won't be able to check in for another two weeks as I will be in Lingai, so I will have TONS of stories for you all when I return! Hope everyone's having a great time back in the states!
Love,
Nicole
It's really neat reading about your experiences Nicole. I have been working at a learning center this summer, so the teaching part I totally understand. Self-confidence is definitely one of the first things a student has to overcome when trying to learn something thats hard for them.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with everything and have fun!
Tiffany
Nicole keep it up honey. I'm so proud of you and what you're trying to accomplish! Remember... you can't save the whole world at once... so take what you can and do the best you can with it. If you save one kid, you're entire trip was worth it. Keep your head up, temper your frustration and focus on the task at hand. LOVE YOU!
ReplyDelete- Dad