Hi everyone. My name is Jean Mistele and I am at a mathematics educator in the Artis College of Science and Technology in the Mathematics and Statistics department. I am the blogger for, Monday June 19.
Today we went to Malemia Primary school in the Domasi area for the
first time. We met with the head teacher
(principal) and the assistant head teacher (vice principal) to go over our
plans for our two week visit and specifically our time with the children today.
First I will briefly describe school structure and
procedures followed by our adventures today.
The school has 8 levels and they are approximately set up
like our school system but they do not have kindergarten. The 8 level “grade”
students have not attended school since they had their exams for secondary
school back in March and April. Students do not advance to secondary school
without passing these exams.
The school year is set up with three sessions and each
session is approximately 14 weeks each. Session 1 starts September 5, around
our Labor Day and the last session ends July 28 around the end of the month.
The day begins at 7:30 am, I believe for all of the children but the younger
children are dismissed about an hour or so before the older students. I am not
exactly sure how they split the grades for these staggered schedules. I will
learn more about that tomorrow.
As we entered the school grounds, the children were told
ahead of time about our visit, children engaged in outside recess began to
storm our vehicle. They were laughing, chanting, clapping hands, jumping, and
running towards the bus-so happy to see us. We felt like rock stars! It was
amazing, I must say my eyes had a tear or two. Their joy was overwhelming. The
vice principal made his way to the door of our small bus to greet each of us as
we introduced ourselves to him as we disembarked from the bus. As we slowly
made our way to the principal’s office, the children surrounded us, wanting to
give us their version of “high fives,” clasping our hands, and giving us hugs.
I was not expecting such a warm reception. When we all made our way into the office, we
met the principal and began our meeting about our plans for the next two weeks.
The vice principal took us to each class to meet the students and the teachers.
Since, the teacher strike just ended, about 1/3 of the students were in school
on this first day after the strike. We suspect the attendance will be much
higher as the children, who did attend today, tell their friends that the
Americans were at school. Meeting the students was an eye opening experience. We
lined up at the front of each classroom. We would just say our first name. The
younger children would try to say our names. The children who answered
correctly first were praised by their classmates with laughter and clapping.
In
one classroom we visited (1st or 2nd grade) Patti Talbot,
the leader of our study abroad, was the last one to introduce herself. She
said, “I am Patti.” The children recited what they thought was her name, “I am
Patti.” We all laughed as it was so cute! After the introductions, Kim, Patti
and I went to the 7 level classroom to talk to the teachers about their
mathematics daily schedule as it was pertinent to one aspect of the research
project. In pairs the 8 RU students went back to the 1 – 3 classrooms and spent
about 20 minutes in each. There is one level 1 classroom, 2 classrooms for
level 2 and 3. These lower classes are very large, having over 100 students.
Even the higher levels like 6 and 7 will have over 70 students in them. After
this, we met on the school yard as the younger children were dismissed from
school. However, they did not leave school. They swarmed us, giving us “high
fives,” holding our hands, giving us hugs, and asking us our names and telling
us their names. They grabbed some of us by our hands and made a circle singing
and then began running in the circle. The circle would break and they all
laughed. After a couple of rounds with that, I backed away to watched other
games the children were playing with our RU students, but I was not idle very
long when three girls came to me and took my hand and began circling, then stopping
to lightly slap their chests, their thighs as they stooped down, and then stood
up as they chanted something in their own language, Chichewa. The younger
children are still learning English, the national language, but it is not their
home language.
As it was time to go, we
walked down the dirt road at the far end of the school yard towards Domasi. At
this point, I will take a brief detour to give a high level description of the
school layout. The higher levels, or standards, classrooms are on one side of
the rectangular shaped school yard with the lower level standards of classrooms
adjacent to them on the left, along with the building to make meals and the
principal’s office. Directly across the school yard from the higher “grades’”
classrooms were three small homes and one is the principal’s home. I found that
very interesting and began to think about all of the pros and cons of living on
the school campus. As we continued down the road, many of the children followed
us but the farther we went they began to thin out, as I suspect they went to
their own homes along this route.
As we approached the main street in the Domasi area we met a friend
of Patti Talbot, who is a teacher at another local school in the area. He came to
the US and while here, visited a school in Radford, Bel Heth. We went to his
home to chat with him for a short time and we met his older son. Then we were
off to the Ministry of Education campus to eat our packed lunches in the staff
lounge. This is the location for teacher development and administration for the
Domasi area. After lunch, we went to the grocery store to buy more water and
other snacks, which was followed by another stop at the local artisan market to
purchase a few more handmade items. Our last stop was the tailor, next door to our lodge, to
view patterns before we visit the fabric shop tomorrow. Then, we went back to
our lodge and hoped an early start for dinner may reduce the wait time – no
such luck – another almost 2 hour wait before we were served after placing our
order. However, this time we were prepared! We brought cards and a board game
as we chatted and shared our new experiences in a Malawian school.
