The Battle Over Television!

The battle over television

For today’s class, I decided to abandon the textbook…for just a short while. Today’s topic in the textbook was a short piece of realistic fiction about too much television. After reading the story, it came to me…why not have students participate in a real debate so that they can learn both sides of the argument for and against children watching television.

This is a the format of the stories that students read from their textbooks.

After the reading there are basic recall questions to answer. 

There are very few, if any, critical thinking or problem sovling questions to answer.

I visited the school library in hopes of finding information of some kind related to this topic so that students could come and prepare for their side of the debate…instead I discovered that the library consisted of a few shelves of only student textbooks. The computer lab seemed like the next best option, however, there is not internet connection. The computers are only for word documents. So it looked like students would not have the experience of collecting information to use in the debate, I would have to provide the information.

The school library has only student copies of the subject textbooks and old newspapers.

Mema is lucky because most schools don't have a library at all.

So yesterday I went to town to look up two articles online to print. I discovered two articles presenting arguments for and against television, however, because printing is costly, I was only able to print one article each. We were going to have to share.

For the debate, I divided the class in half. One side of the class worked on reading from the textbook using the before, during, and after reading strategies that we have been working with, while the other half worked on preparing for a debate. Since students were not too familiar with preparing for a debate I helped walk them through the article. We focused on identifying the key points for our argument and then finding data and statistics to defend the argument. After helping one side prepare, we switched and I worked with the other half of the class while the other students read from their textbook. Not the most efficient way to do things but it worked. After both sides finished preparing we talked as a class about the differences between the textbook story and the information presented in the article. We were able to begin our debate before the bell rang. Although we didn’t finish the debate, I hope that students were able to take away a few lessons from today’s class. I hope that they were able to see the importance of supporting their argument with hard facts and data that we saw in the articles and that they were able to see how reading comprehension applies to real life! 

Home Sweet Home!

I can hardly believe that I am finally in Kenya! A year and a half later and I am finally here. In December 2010 I completed my degree in Elementary Education at the University of Maine Farmington. In January, I said goodbye to the most amazing seventh graders at Skowhegan Area Middle School, packed my bags, and set out for Mangu, Kenya where I will be spending the next three months volunteer teaching at Mema Secondary School. While volunteering at the high school located a mile and a half away, I will be staying in the JWHS children's home. This is a home for street children. There are currently eight children in the home and three children at boarding school. The children's home is run by the NGO Expanding Opportunites, which I came over with.

Welcome to the JWHS children's home!

Lauren, Emom, Amos, and me!

Lauren we miss you!

Mema Secondary School is a government day school for nearly four hundred students in the small, rurual village of Mangu. The classes are divided into girls classes and boys classes for each grade. I will be teaching Form 1 West (Freshman boys), Form 2 East and West (Sophomore girls and boys), Form 3 East and West (Junior girls and boys), and Form 4 West (Senior boys). I teach English even though my qualification is in social studies. Mema will not allow me to teach social studies since we do not teach CRE or bible study in the United States.

Mema Secondary School

 Here is the staff room. Instead of teachers having their own classroom

they all have a desk in the staff room. There are 13 teachers desks.

Correcting papers! There are always stacks and stacks of papers to correct, 

especially with class sizes around 40!

Given only four different forms of the English student textbook, Head Start Secondary English, and nothing else I was considered ready to teach. Shocked to find that the school library contains only student copies of the subject textbooks and back newspapers but nothing else. There are no other teaching supplies like crayons, colored pencils, or construction paper. There are no manipulatives, no pictures, and no posters. Classrooms are empty except for forty-forty five used desks, a few windows with bars on them, and a chalkboard. There are no book shelves, no globes, no computers, no charts, no projectors, or anything else except dust. 

Here are my Form 3 girls!

Everything about Mema is different. Students do chores before and after class. Chores include sweeping and moping the outside corridors, milk the school cows, pump water, etc. Students are required to wear school uniforms when they go to class. They remain in the same classroom all day and the subject teachers are the ones who switch classes! 

The gates of Mema! The motto is "Shine All Round"

I'm so excited to be volunteer teaching here!