Back to School

Hopefully you all have survived the first of school.  The year is officially is underway here in Kampala and week One is in the books!  In the last few years now, Erin has had a few first days of school, but this one may have contained the most uncertainty concerning what in the world to expect.  As you can imagine, there were all sorts of questions swirling around in her head concerning how effective of a teacher she'd be here and what her kids will be ready for, what the kids will be like, what she will actually need to teach, how will they feel about her, will there be any way at all to cram in all the things she wa worried she may have to teach them this year, will she be able to effectively communicate and relate to kids of all sorts of backgrounds, can she teach middle schoolers, can she teach senior physics, and I’m sure much more she didn’t tell me about.  It was a nervous night Sunday night.  She was calm, but just had a ton of questions.  But the morning came, and she hurried off to school.  …And I anxiously waited through the day for the phone call telling me what she thought and how she felt.  This was a bit of a critical point in how this year is going to go, so I admit, I was a little nervous myself.  3:00p rolled around and I received the call.  She said she couldn’t really talk now, but ‘the kids are GREAT!’  So we hung up, and I just smiled.  And even now after 4 more days, she says the same – now there are plenty of different questions swirling around, and she is still very unsure about many things concerning the direction of the science department for this school year.  But her kids are ‘awesome.’  They are respectful, cooperative, and fun.  She teaches kids from approx. 15 different nationalities.  Her largest class is 17 kids - 7^th grade.  And her smallest class is 11^th grade, with 2 kids (soon to grow to 4 or 5).  The students in each class are all on different levels, so she will be teaching different things to kids in the same class.  But the kids seem to be ready for everything, and that makes all the difference.  ...And they are a little further along than she thought they might be – except in biology…the subject she knows the best and enjoys teaching the most.  So it is great.  And so it seemed appropriate to celebrate the first day with a walk to get some ice cream!  Many of you will want to know more about the start of school experience.  Erin has broken it down in more detail for those of you who are interested at the end of the blog.  So read on below!

At eMi, I’m developing standards in the office as we gear up for the new year and am working on a design for a guest house for a developing school in the heart of rural Africa.  Most of the staff has returned to Kampala now, back from Colorado Springs for the companywide conference eMi has every 5 or so years.  Our East Africa field office staff here in Kampala consists of John - the office director, Pat - a project team leader who is a civil engineer, Phil - a project team leader who is a structural engineer, and Brittany - an office administrator who is a mechanical engineer.  We also have an architect joining the staff in about a month.  Staff members have a commitment of at least 3 years.  I am a ‘Long Term Volunteer,’ and my commitment is for a year.  Robert Donahue, who I’ve mentioned previously and has been doing a fabulous job of showing us around and holding down the fort while everyone was gone, is also a long term volunteer - and also an architect.  We have another long term volunteer, a structural engineer, joining us at the end of the month.  So we have a pretty well-rounded little office here.  And then for each semester during the year to liven up the place, we also have 5 to 6 interns come in to help with production for the project trips.  The eMi family here is really quite amazing and work together very well.  I’m glad to be a part of it. 

We’ve had a good week otherwise.  We are feeling at home.  Erin even made her first batch of chocolate chip cookies.  As more of the eMi staff and interns get into town, we will want to move into more of a hosting role to greet them instead of being the ones being hosted all the time.  ...well….…we’ll just say that’s Erin’s ‘great’ idea.  ...Though if it means more chocolate chip cookies, who am I to complain.

We are gradually figuring out a repertoire of dinner recipes.  Erin is feeding me well as always.  She might be making a lot of it up as she goes along, but you can’t really go to wrong with just sautéing something with the fruits and vegetables here.  I got a quick shot of her at one of the market stands by our house buying produce.  At this stop, we spent about $3 – and got a dozen eggs, a bunch of bananas, 2 bags of onions, 2 (large) avocados, 5 lemons, a head of cabbage, and a pineapple.  And every bit of it is great.  Ugandan bananas are the best I’ve ever had, pineapples here are to die for, and I don’t know what it is, but the onions are amazing.  We didn’t get any tomatoes this time, but they also seem to just make everything good. 

Well, we have pictures this week of Erin making cookies and eating ice cream, so you know we must be doing alright.  It feels good getting to work as well.  It is so good to see Erin filling a need and enjoying her kids.  And it makes me proud to see the school being so grateful that they have her.  And it’s good to make friends with people we are beginning to regularly see every day.  I think we’ve said this before, but it is not hard to make friends with Ugandans. 

We hope the start of the school year is going well for all of you.  We miss you all.  We’ve been gone for over 3 weeks, and it is starting to sink in that we’re not on some sort of vacation.  We should have thought of this before we left, but we ought to have brought some actual physical pictures of you all with us.  We could make a bulletin board here to put up in our room of American friends and family to help us feel closer to you.  ……So we have yet another request.  If you are reading this, would you consider sending us a picture of you (and family) for us to pin up at our place?  Nothing fancy – just a fun picture, any size.  No need to write a letter with sappy stuff - that will only make my wife cry.  An international letter costs 98 cents and you can just add that to the list of things we owe you.  We can accept mail at: eMi, Attn: Gary Hightower, P.O.Box 3251, Kampala, Uganda.  Thanks so much!  We would love it. 

Take good care of yourselves.  Talk to you soon.  And now, read on for more detail of Erin’s first impressions of school…

It’s about this time of year that I hear Nemo chanting “First day of school! First day of school!” over and over in my mind, and I tell myself that I should be that excited…

I’m just going to share my school summary as of right now, because it’s been pretty up and down – each day brings new knowledge and realizations that either (a)makes me want to quit teaching forever or (b)makes me feel slightly relieved and that I am at least somewhat capable of doing what I need to do.

So a little background on my kids: From a cultural perspective, they are a very diverse bunch. I think there are over 20 countries represented among the student body from the US to the UK to Sweden to India to Korea to Uganda – you name it, we’ve got it. Most students speak pretty good English, but there are a few new students that we’ll be working with very closely. I have one from Liberia that is just one of those students that you instantly grow attached to – he is very sweet and soft-spoken, but also very intentional about his studies which is cool to see. This group is also just as diverse when it comes to academics – this has been the source of my somewhat weakened mental state these days: How to get 62ish students with such different background knowledge to learn what they need to learn in the amount of time given. To be more specific, here’s the breakdown of my classes:

7th Grade – Dear Jesus, I didn’t sign up for 7th grade – you have a funny sense of humor! They are a squirrely, awkward and also tender-hearted, curious, and enthusiastic bunch of kids. They are also my biggest class – 16 students, just the right size for this fuddy duddy teacher! There aren’t too many gaps here. As far as resources go, I should be receiving teacher materials soon – soon means about a month here, so I’m winging it for now. They are going to be fun to work with as things are still very exciting for them.

8th Grade – A more subdued version of the 7th grade – 12 students strong. The boys are quiet and respectful, but I caught them having what they thought was a private conversation, and they’re a fun, goofy, innocently funny group of kiddos that I am going to have fun getting to know. The girls are highly motivated and studious – it’s amazing to watch them go. They care very much about doing things well, and it is absolutely refreshing to see. The boys are highly motivated too, but the girls are pretty serious about it - very cute to watch! Just like the 7th graders, I am waiting for teacher materials and making it up as I go until they arrive J Also, I have the 8th graders for morning devotions – they are very reserved, so I’m going to need to work on getting them to speak up. And if you have any devo ideas for 8th graders, send them along please!

9th Grade – I really like this class (but I’ll probably say this about all of them!). They are an interesting mix of old students who have been at the school for a long time and new students from all over. There are 7 of them. 9th grade is where the academics start to get interesting. Since I work at an international school, the curriculum is a little different – they are trying to revamp things such that bio/chem/physics are covered over 9th and 10th grades (done in the UK – those crazy Brits!), and I’m the lucky one that will be getting the students where they need to be in order for that to happen. So 9th grade will get an entire biology course, about 25% of a chem course, and about 15% of a physics course. Don’t ask me how that will happen in the 166 school days to come, but that is the goal. I should also specify that when I say “curriculum”, all I really have is a student textbook and IGCSE learning objectives – no teacher materials, pacing guides, frameworks, etc. to speak of – I’m literally making it up as I go for 4 out of 6 classes. And to boot, one of the students is only here for 1 year, and in order to get credit for biology when she returns to Iowa, she needs to have covered the US bio standards – fortunately she is very self-motivated (wants to be a medical scientist), so I’ll just need to make sure she gets any additional content she might miss in the regular bio course.

10th Grade – This is going to be a fun group to work with too. Just some really classy kids from so many different backgrounds – I have a lot to learn from them. But again with the diverse academic backgrounds, holy cow, this class is a winner. I will be finishing up IGCSE (that funny UK curriculum) biology, chemistry, and physics with the 3 returning students, doing strictly US biology with one student and strictly US chemistry with 2 students. How I will be teaching 3 things at once is beyond me – I’m thinking of setting up contracts for them to work independently, but I’ll need to gauge just how self-directed they can be first.

11th Grade – This class cracks me up. There are 3 students currently – another should be returning when he gets back from wherever his home country is sometime next week which will bring it up to 4. Again, a great couple of students – very neat kiddos. All of them are thankfully returning and on the same page, so the plan is to spend 1/3 of the year on random topics in biology, chem, and physics, and then they should be squared away with their science requirements.

12th Grade – And, I have to say it again, I really like this class. There are 14 of them, and they are a pretty tight-knit group – and ultra-sweet and respectful. But academically, I’m just making it up as I go. They’re basically done with chemistry and physics, but in all of their past science teacher rotations, biology got lost in the shuffle. However some students transferred in to the school after having already finished biology. So here’s my brilliant plan (actually stolen from one of my students). For the first semester, half of the students will work through concepts they missed in biology – the other half will work together to come up with fabulous labs and learning activities that they will share with the other half of students each week. They were actually pretty enthusiastic about this plan and looking forward to learning biology and getting to help teach their peers. But of course, it can’t be perfect – as I was talking to them today, one of the new students said, “Oh, Ms. Hightower – I’ve already had chemistry and biology – I’ll need to take physics.” ::sigh:: Oh course she would need something completely different than her peers… The second half of the semester is still up in the air, but it will most likely include (pending approval from the higher ups) a fabulous science room makeover with all manner of science-related murals to be painted – they don’t know this yet, but I think they’ll be pretty excited about it!

So in short, the kids are awesome. Figuring out what to teach them is slightly less than awesome. Six different classes, and two of them have 3 different content groups within them. So it’s kinda like teaching 10 classes really – that was depressing, forget I said that. But I’m feeling better now that I at least have a plan for what they need to learn – it’s just the implementation that has my head spinning. Doing a lot of praying for wisdom and trying to not lose focus on just loving these amazing kids – too easy to get bogged down in the details of work.

As I go along, I’ll share more of the specifics of how the school works – there are interesting differences between how things work here versus in the US. For example, we get to do all kinds of fun stuff I would have been afraid would lead to a lawsuit in the States – how liberating!

By the way, as I was writing this, a gecko ran across our bedroom floor and is now making his way into our dresser. Gary has the lower drawers, so I should be okay J Oops, spoke too soon – he just ran into one of my shirts on the top of the dresser. Note to self – I need to pay very close attention to my clothes before I put them on…

And I wish to state for the record that I am totally fine with not having a dishwasher… but if I had hot water in the kitchen, that would be heavenly…!