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 (1^st or 2^nd 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.