Blog Number 12
February 14, 2008


So tomorrow officially marks the end of teaching week number six. I wouldn’t have even realized it, had it not been for a teacher who asked me how much time they had left with me. When I mentioned the date, he reminded me that it was only three week from Monday that 4 Monday’s from this Monday, I would be boarding the plane to head home. Thinking back to my stay in Spain, it was at this time in my trip that I was so eager to go home, that I literally made a weeks itinerary of every food that I missed that my mom would have to make as well as all of the things that I would do, including laying in my bed all day because I missed it!
Well now, here I am and literally have no concept of time, whether it is how long I have been here or how much I have left. But rather I am measuring the things that I would still like to do, and that list is quite long! I do not even want to think about even getting ready to go home right now. There are still teachers who owe me drinks; there is a movie marathon day with my cooperating teacher (to watch all of the movies he is astounded that I haven’t ever seen) as well as a trip up north to see the waterfall, and game land to hopefully see some truly African animals. There are many more trips to the market to get souvenirs, as well as much more bargaining to be done. I haven’t come close to filling my camera’s memory card as I had intended to do by now, and I have about three more card games that I would like to teach the boys.
I have finally been able to get used to the heat that I walk out into every morning, and I am so part of the teachers, daily lunch group that when I didn’t go to lunch about 3 students asked why I wasn’t with them. One of the newest plans of one of my favorite teachers here, Godwin, is that I will finish my degree by student teaching at Webster, however that student teaching will be done by a distance learning lab. They are going to capture me to stay and teach here. They also assured me that there are 8 men at the school, 3 under the age of 30 who are going to marry me so that I will feel as comfortable as possible!
So, now I have to change the subject because writing about having to leave is not making me happy and today is Valentines Day, so there is no excuse not to be in a good mood!
Today I showed up at my school all decked out in my red, to celebrate the holiday. Of course the only other teachers wearing red were the KG teachers, but that didn’t matter at all, rather it just made more people compliment the outfit! The students were instructed by the head mistress, the day before that there was to be no exchange of valentines at school, however I saw groups of girls and even some boys exchanging quick cards to their classmates. One girl even brought one up to me. It was a homemade card that not only wished me a happy valentines day, but also it was to wish my family the best, especially with me so far away,
Teaching wise, I had a pretty big week. For the last week and a half I have been working with a student on extra help in spelling. Last week on the spelling test he got a 7 out of 20. This Monday when we met after school to go over the test and work I had given him, he had a huge smile on his face and showed me that he received an 18 out of 20 on the test!!! The rest of the week was spent on finalizing details for a big project that I will be working with the students on for the next three weeks. We are writing a Choose your Own Adventure Story, much like the one we did in instructional tech during sophomore block. This Wednesday I introduced the project and we voted on the story that we will be continuing. Both classes choose an African tale that they all know, the first being how the Crab Lost it’s Head, and the second is How the Tortoise got it’s Shell. We then choose four continuation lines that the four groups of students will be working on to write the story. Since the class is 46, each initial group will have 11 students in it. From there, we will break the groups up further so each group will have about 5. While we will be writing a class story, each of the students will be writing their own story, from which their group will draw ideas to put together the class story. This project should be covering a variety of teaching standards from the curriculum that my cooperating teacher showed me. Overall, Wednesday went really well and both classes seemed to be extremely excited about this idea. They are already eager for next Wednesday when they find out their groups, and can begin to write their stories!

OK, well I hope that everyone has had a wonderful Valentines Day, and that they did not eat too many chocolates (Ghana decided that today is not only Valentines day, but National Chocolate Day, so many of the children brought Chocolates for the teachers!)

Bola, let me know if that distant learning lab thing would be a possibility for my next placement?!

☺Chelsea☺