After raod-trippin' with the boys, I headed down to Pre-Service training in Loitokitok for a week of intense awsomeness.
As part of the pre-service training for secondary school teachers, the trainees practice teaching in schools for a week. At the end of the school year, Kenyan teachers do not appreciate having their normal schedule disturbed in order to accommodate a group of untrained teachers. Not only are the trainees untrained in terms of their teaching, but further, they speak at these poor children with tons of enthusiasm in an accent of English that is sometimes very difficult for them to understand.
For this, and other reasons, the teaching practicum is setup by Peace Corps, and is dubbed a “model school.” This year there were three of four volunteers that did all of the organization and facilitation for the model school. Three volunteers brought students from their respective schools. In the mornings these students helped the trainees by letting the trainees teach them. Then, in the afternoon, myself and the three volunteers taught the students life skills.
We discussed the qualities that make various types of relationships positive or negative. We talked about goal setting. We also talked about HIV/AIDS facts vs. myths, and the 8-step approach to using a condom. It was very fun and rewarding working with these students for a week. There are a few of them that I miss even now. Then in the evenings we had various activities that were meant to be more recreational. All of the activities were big hits, including board/card game night, movie night, and, the session that I planned, a bridge building competition.
For the bridge building competition, I gave them each 30 straws, 7 pieces of paper, 2 pieces of string, a hand full of tooth picks and about 4 ft of masking tape. The bridge had to be free-standing and had to span a gap that was longer than both the straws and the paper.
We had a couple of trainees spend the night each night in order get more interaction time with the students. They were super excited about entering the competition, and they made a bridge using two trusses, each chalked full of triangles. The bridges were judged by placing an empty cup on top and measuring the amount of water poured into the cup before the bridge collapsed. The group of trainees even included an engineer, but they still came in last place!
I thought that it was rather unfortunate that the team that came in first basically made a bundle of tape, straws, and paper. Maybe I gave the groups too much tape...
These evening events went until around 10pm each day. Then the volunteers had to meet to debrief and plan for the next day, then we went to sleep at 11pm-midnight, and got up at 5:45 to do it all over again.
Gosh it was a lot of fun! Also, it was really awesome to see the PC trainees experiment with teaching. During our model school literally no one used an interactive activity with the students, but during this model school, the students got out of their seats to participate almost every class. I feel confident that with this introduction to teaching in Kenya that these teachers will go forth and make good Peace Corps secondary school teachers.
At the end of the week I said good bye to Kelly, another PC secondary school teacher. She was an integral component of the model school planning and facilitation. She was also on the Volunteer Action Committee, representing the views of the other Peace Corps Volunteers with me. She actually has a teaching license from the States, which is rare for a PCV. She has been a mentor of mine, and she has inspired me in the classroom. I am excited for her for this change in her life. I am thinking about what I will do in a year when I go home. I hope to have applied to graduate school programs. I also know that I am invited to go ice fishing with Kelly in Minnesota, which I will definitely take her up on!
I am excited to be here for another year though. Even though the training was not meant for me, I got practice teaching life skills to students and I got to observe other teachers lessons, all of which I will bring back to school this year.
If I do one thing for this next year, I want it to be teaching life skills.
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