09/16/08

The great thing about the students at this school is that they all are striving to get an education. In fact, most students here would prefer to be in school than to be at home. When I arrived today, I wasn’t missing any of my students. The only thing missing was a few homework assignments because of the confusion. Of course, I will allow them to turn it in the next day since our world was turned upside down with 5 minutes notice at the end of Monday. I explained to my classes that I will be continuing the lessons as normal and I will also be giving out tests. Though the day is shortened, I will still be able to teach all of my classes each day except for Geometry which could only fit in on Mon., Wed., and Fri.

Once the day began and I had gone through a few classes, I went downstairs as normal to teach 6th grade. Today, I was continuing my lesson of measurements and covered measures of capacity/volume. On Monday, I had covered linear measures. Before I started the lesson on Monday, I asked the students if they had seen a ruler before. They immediately, in unison, shouted out, “NOOOOO.”. Then I asked them if they knew what their height was and again, they all said, “Noooooo.” I was taken back a bit by this because in the States I would imagine that if you asked any kid in the 6th grade how tall they were, they would know exactly how tall they are down to the quarter inch. It is just amazing when you truly find out how much of a difference there is with the kids here.

I was talking to Carmen today and she mentioned that they used to have a problem with asking the students what their birthday was as most of them didn’t know. I thought that was really bizarre, but again, it just goes to show how much I don’t know about the people here and how much I need to learn in order to become a more effective teacher. I will be sure to have rulers for them all the next day!