My First Day at School

Children who have grown up in a loving family atmosphere tend to be much healthier than those who live alone or, even worse, are beaten and abused and never shown genuine love.   - HH The Dalai Lama

 

 

I went along to Cuvu District School today. Probably a little further than I wanted to travel, but a well loved village and area on the Coral Coast west of Sigatoka. I will eventually just get the mini-van, which will be much cheaper than my car. Shane, the Peace Corps worker was there for his first day of the New Year today, and seems unsure of what he is really doing. He is supposed to be following on from the last Peace Corps worker – but doesn't really know what that person was doing anyway. He takes six classes over a school day on Monday. I have volunteered to come along on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in the mornings. Just being part of his computer class this morning – the impressive line-up of 15 computers that I saw last week actually equates to only 9 which are working – made me realise that perhaps computer is not the most important thing in the role of these young kids. And for the dear little Class 2 sweethearts – the largest class in the school, with 37 children under the care of one teacher – they come in two batches, so the kids are 2 and 3 to a computer, limited English but because the teacher is supervising the other half of the class, there is no translator. When the going gets tough, they just like to give the keyboard a good old bash, just in case that works fixes things. So you are constantly running around closing down things they have opened inadvertently! I am not convinced they wouldn't be better occupied reading stories in the grounds for half an hour, at that age.

The Year 4 teacher, Ilisoni, was telling me that they have had an Australian curriculum for many years, which has not been working in the cultural context for kids who don't have English as a first language. Which makes a lot of sense to me. So the Department of Education has decided to make a change to another, more local curriculum, basing it on testing in literacy in English and Maths – the first real tests in Year 4. I am not sure I totally understand, but it seems that this will be a big year for his Year 4 class. So we are thinking that, even though it is important to have some computer skills, it is actually more important to have English language skills. Ilisoni has taught Year 8 for 4 years, and last year asked to go back to Year 4, because he recognised that Year 8 was an uphill battle, so he may be better equipped to start with the kids earlier. He was tearing his hair today after almost 2 hours of a maths exercise which most of the kids seemed totally incapable of understanding, let alone completing.

Shane was seeing some of the classes for the first time today, and even just getting them to speak out and reply to his questions about how was their holiday, did they get something nice for Christmas, did they go for holiday – was like drawing teeth. One thing I would like to see them have is the ability to speak out, not to fall about in paroxysms of shyness. They can speak out well enough in their own language – Ilisoni says they must be confident enough to speak out in their English language – now more than ever.

I think, therefore that my role will be as I thought all along – a mentor for their English language skills. He agrees with me. But I will be giving each class a half hour lesson spread over 3 or 4 hours 3 times a week. If watching Shane in action was anything to go by, then it will feel like a 10 hour day crammed into a morning. Anyway – as I keep emphasising to them – I am not a teacher, I have no teaching skills, simply a desire to be of assistance in an area where I have some skills.

I have been thinking a lot over the past day or so about my high school English teacher, Mrs Ruth Redmond. There were those in the class who hated her, for her attention to the minute detail of our speech and grammar. There were others, like myself, who thank her for making me an articulate, enquiring, well spoken, confident purveyor of the English language! I am trying to remember some of her tricks – albeit she was our high school teacher, but a lot of them will translate well to the higher grades, from Class 4 onwards.

Much, much more to follow in this saga, I have no doubt. But first, my Fijian 'Blue Card' to work there.