Anywhere you live in the world and any job you work at, you
will always have good days and bad days. But somehow, the bad days as a Peace
Corps Volunteer (PCV) seem particularly bad and the good days particularly
good. During my time as a PCV, I have felt some of the highest of highs of my
life and some of the lowest of lows.
On my blog, I normally write about the good and the routine.
However, today I’m writing about the bad! Today was an awful day at school.
Yesterday, I had a great lesson with each section of grade 6 all about how to
write a friendly letter. I was so happy and had so much fun and they really
really seemed to understand the content—a success of a lesson! I had such high
hopes for today and was excited to see the letters that grade 6 wrote as
homework. Things took a turn for the worse when I went around this morning to
check their homework… in section 6A, 12 of the 22 learners either copied their
letter from the examples in the textbook or didn’t write a letter at all. And
in 6B, 15 out of 22 copied or didn’t do it. That meant that only 17 out of 44
grade 6 learners did their homework. 38.6% of them. Woof. I spent the lesson
thanking the learners who did their work while having those that copied re-do
it and also write lines as punishment for not doing their work. I was so disappointed, upset, and sad. Culturally,
copying isn’t seen as being such a terrible thing here in Namibia as it is in
America. I tried to explain to the learners that copying is a form of lying and
it is not okay at all. Copying isn’t something that honest and good people do,
which means that it’s not something they should be doing because I know they’re
all smart and good people.
After a disappointing morning with the grade 6’s*, I went to
grade 7B, ready to hear their presentations of profiles of characters in the
book we are reading, Holes. To my
extreme disappointment, they did not prepare well at all. Their posters weren’t
finished and they didn’t prepare what each person in the group was going to
talk about. Needless to say, I got back up on my figurative soapbox and
expressed my disappointment in the learners’ work for a third time in one day.
Yeesh. It was not a nice position to be in for either myself or the learners,
that’s for sure. But let’s hope that the message was received and that this won’t
be a problem that we encounter again. Fingers crossed!
(*My first lesson was with grade 7A and it was actually a
very nice lesson. The day started out great, but went downhill quickly. So, it
wasn’t all bad, but the good was certainly a bit overshadowed.)
My apologies for turning my blog into a journal today. To my
fellow teachers out there… you certainly know how it is. Some days are rough and sometimes you need to
vent! Now it’s time to go for a run to relax. Oshi li wete! (See you!)
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