Day 053 - Hello from Guinee II

Hi Everyone,

I am in Conakry again to write to you all! Woohoo! I have so much to say and I don't know where to start. So, grab a cup of coffee and kick back. (I sent Michael another really long letter about 1.5 weeks ago about the 2nd-6th week of training, so I will not repeat them here. You should see that one pretty soon.) 

We just finished our first week of practice school teaching real Guinean students. It was a real intense week. I hardly got much sleep and got a cold, but I think the cold is going away now. Just a quick of explanation of practice school since you haven‚t seen since my last post yet, it is for students who want to learn a bit of extra and for us to practice teaching in the summer.

Before practice school, we had taught among ourselves a few times and got started to plan our lessons. And last week was for the first time facing 30-50 young faces each day for 2 hours and then observes other fellow trainees or trainers, then more language studies in the afternoon, then preparing for our lessons for the rest of day into the wee hours. The preparation takes a long time for me, because I have to script out my entire lesson, when do I write something on the board, when do I explain the concept (often with multiple explanations), when do I demonstrate, when do I ask student questions, when do I ask student to come up to do exercise in the front, and I have to make sure my language is correct. I feel bad for my students because of my broken French. I told my kids that I am here to teach them physics, and they can certainly help me with my French. 

I taught the source of light and how we are able to see things with light to my 9th grade students. I spent a long time to come up with all different way to demonstrate when light shine on different things, they reflect light and therefore we are able to see them. I explained to them that the moon reflects light, it doesn't produce light; why when you put a pen in a cup of water it looks bent, because light change direction going from one medium to another. I was also able to construct a pin-hole camera with the tube you find inside a roll of toilette paper, taping up one end with duct tape for screen, to show them how camera got started. I save everything now, cos you just never know what you can use to teach. Also, things are hard to obtain, not like there are everywhere and they have everything to sell, so I have to be very creative. And Can I tell you, it‚s so much fun for me! I spent so much time to think, think and think some more. I would wake up early sometimes (like 5 am when I only had just gone to bed 5 hours ago) because I have some new ideas for my classes. My 9th grade class is small about 30 students, and they were all very good. I think all the demonstrations really helped keeping them engaged. We even played a jeopardy game of all the concepts I taught them on Thursday, to help them to get ready for a quiz on Friday.

I taught my 9th grader at 8am for an hour, and then I had an hour break till my next class with the 10th graders. I usually look over my next lesson during that hour. My 10th grade class is much larger, about 50 students. I taught them the basic concept of motion, that it is relative, also concept of distance, speed and time, all very basic stuff. I held a pen in my hand in my hand, and walked around the classroom, to show them that, to them the pen is moving, but to me, the pen is not. Also the example of passenger and driver in a moving car. I think most of them got it. I am not as happy though as their comprehension of the relationship between distance, speed and time. During class they all seemed they really understood me, but their homework and quiz don‚t quite reflect that. I wonder if I went through the material too fast (on day, I was so caught with the energy we created in the classroom, I think I got carried away and move the lesson along too fast), or my French was just not good enough, so they didn't really get everything I taught. We are told that Guinean students answer yes to a lot of things, so their enthusiasms do not necessarily reflect their comprehensions. 

Although the first week of practice school was tiring, but I enjoyed it nevertheless, even on catching students cheating during quizzes. Yes, cheating is big problem here and I totally switched mode from a nice perky teacher to a hard ass when it came to quiz time, as soon as I saw them looking at another kids paper, I put an „0‰ on their paper. No discussion. Here in Guinea, classroom has rows of benches, and because of lack of teachers, class size can be really large, like 100. So if you get 3 kids in row on the same bench, it's just way to easy for them to look at each others‚ paper during exams. I am lucky that I didn‚t have to give out so many „0‰. In my 9th grade, I was able to sit one student at a bench because class is small. In my 10th grade, I had 2 kids per bench and I made 2 different problems, so each kid sitting in the same bench will not do the same problem. They will have to turn around to look at the person directly behind them, and that will just be too obvious. Also, we have to write exam questions on the board. Paper is expensive and how do you make photo copies if there is no electricity.   So, I wrote the prob lem on the board ahead, but leave out import terms and numbers, so the kids couldn‚t peek in the room and see what the questions are. Argh, the art of policing cheating. We also ask students to bring all their bags and notebook to the front before the exams.

I will teach 7th and 8th grade for the next 2 weeks of practice school. A whole 2 hours lesson each time instead of just one hour. It will be interesting, because I will be teaching younger kids, larger class size, therefore more issues with classroom management, and it is a longer class. I didn‚t really have classroom management issues last week, because they were older kids, short class, and I had enough interesting mix of things to show to keep them interested. Oh boy, I‚ve never sweated so much talking in front of a group of people.

We also had a session on giving a sensiblization to our future communities. Teaching villager about safe sex like using condoms for example is a sensiblization, other things are like trash disposal in the communities (trash are thrown wherever here), keep girls in schools to help forwarding the progress of the countries, etc. I am looking forward to talk to as many people as possible in my village in an one-on-one style about a lot of these issues. I also hope I can visit all my students‚ family.  Let's hope my frustration will never be too great to stop me from keep trying.

I had a dream (or rather, nightmare) on Thursday night that I got kicked out of the Peace Corps without being told why and was back in the U.S. I was devastated and totally in a panic mode. I woke up from my dream. I think I was just stressed from teaching and preparation. I am glad I am teaching physics, not math, because to me it is so much fun to explain and understand how the physical world works. I am learning new things myself as I am teaching. But, really, I can‚t imagine going back to the states and live the life I used live anymore. I can‚t explain to you why, but I just can‚t as this point, maybe in a couple of years, I will be, or maybe not. I will have to see where my wandering soul feels then. Tibet wouldn‚t be too bad. I really miss Tibet, just hope it won‚t get too developed too quickly.

On other front, my stomach is continuing doing well and enjoys my mom's (Guinean) cooking. Everyone in the group is supporting each other in this endeavor. It's really great to have second year PCVs and learn from them. A great training system.

The beautiful landscape of countryside continues to mesmerize me. I hope you will find that as well in my photos.

I am happy and I hope all of you are as well. Miss you all, and please keep well!

- Bonnie