And the Challenges Begin

The last few days have definitely been a challenge. I showed up to school on Monday and was told that I was being moved to Ms. Mabuku’s class from Ms. Kandara’s class. I knew this move was coming, but had been told that it wouldn’t be happening for another week. I did my best to smile and say thank you when they informed me of the change, but inside I was extremely frustrated. The night before I had spent time making posters and planning lessons for Ms. Kandara that I would no longer be able to use. I gave what I had planned to Ms. Kandara and made my way to my new classroom. Throughout the day I taught a couple science lessons and a couple art lessons and they went well, considering I had not had anytime to plan.

On Tuesday, I was able to teach the lessons I had planned for Ms. Mabuku. During break, we had a staff meeting. The principal had not covered all of the material she had wanted to before the bell rang for period 5 to begin, so she asked the five of us from PLU and the five student teachers from University of Namibia to be in charge of all 1,400 learners until they were finished. We were told the meeting would be over in about 5 minutes. The five minutes stretched to half an hour. Half an hour stretched to nearly an hour before the teachers returned to their classrooms, well most of the teachers at least. During this crazy hour, Jan and Paula were trying to observe us teaching. They came into our room at the beginning of period 7, which was religion for us, and told me that there was no teacher next door. I went next door and taught a math lesson on rounding. The grade 7 learners that I had in that class were fantastic. I went back and taught periods 8 and 9 in Ms. Mabuku’s class and ended the day with a smile on my face. That evening I planned my science and art lessons for the following day; little did I know I would not be able to teach them again.

Wednesday started off like any other day; we had our devotion and staff meeting and I headed off to the classroom. Once Ms. Mabuku arrived, we went into the classroom and I began getting ready to teach for period one. One of the Heads of Department (HOD) came in and started speaking to Ms. Mabuku in Afrikaans. The next thing I knew, Ms. Mabuku said to her in English, “You can’t have her.” Then the HOD said, “Yes I can and I am!” The next thing I knew I was being asked to teach in a grade 5 classroom because Ms. Nafuka was absent. I smiled and asked them to point me in the direction of my new classroom.

I got to the classroom after period 1 had started and the 5E learners were bouncing off the walls. They were yelling and throwing punches and just all over the place. I finally got them to sit down and asked them what they were learning. The general consensus was that they were learning place value. I wrote a number on the board and asked them to tell me what number was in the units place, tens place, and so on and so forth. I think I got up to maybe the hundreds place before the entire class was out of control again. At this point I stopped teaching and asked the kids to help me come up with some classroom rules. They seemed to think they were a pretty good idea and that they could follow them, that is follow them for the next 5 minutes. I had these students for 5 periods that day and I broke up more fights while I was teaching than I have the entire rest of the time I have been here in Namibia. Throughout the day I tried every management technique I could possibly think of and NONE of them seemed to work. After my second period I went into the staff bathroom, closed the stall door, and began to cry. I was at a complete loss and I still had 7 more periods to get through. Kristin and I made the mistake of telling the Afrikaans teacher that the students had been being disrespectful. She asked us to come back into the classroom while she screamed at them for 15 minutes, made every one of them apologize to me one at a time, and then broke a ruler over one of their heads. This was a traumatizing experience for me, yet it is the norm for the children, which absolutely breaks my heart. This was truly the day from hell, but I got through it with the help of Kristin, Jenn, and Alicia.

By the time I got home I was ready to collapse, as a matter of fact I walked into Katie, Melanie, and Kayla’s room and fell to the floor when they asked me how my day had been. I proceeded to sit in a chair and cry while I explained all of the awful things I had seen. They reminded me that it was just one day and that things would get better.

Not long after I got home, we had our last group meeting while Jan and Paula were here and then they took us out to dinner at Andy’s. The 18 of us devoured 9 delicious pizzas, which was exactly what I needed. Once we returned home from our relaxing evening, I couldn’t help but think about how dreadful it would be to go to school the next day. I quickly did some planning, yet again for lessons I wouldn’t get to teach and went to bed.

This morning when I got to school I was again asked to take over the same class. As much as I wanted to run away, I walked over to the classroom and I got my 5E learners to sit down quietly and take a quiz on place value so that I could assess exactly where they were. The rest of the day however, was not so good. I didn’t cry, which with these kids is a great success in my eyes. Allison, and Jenn were lifesavers again today. It is really nice to know that my PLU family always has my back. Who knows what tomorrow will bring, I guess I will just have to cross my fingers that I have a few more small successes with these learners.