Model School

            This week marks the third and final week of model school for the Crane Group (we have animal names for our teaching groups). I have been working with a group of four other trainees since we arrived in Rwanda. We have been lesson, trimester, and classroom management planning for the last 8 weeks and have finally struck a rhythm in our teaching methodology. Though I did teach a little bit at my site, it has been completely different writing lesson plans every night and successfully implementing creative teaching methodologies that are focused around the students and not me. It is easy to stand in front of a group of forty students for fifty minutes and talk, but it is a whole different ball game to get all the students, despite their English proficiency, engaged and involved in contextualized activities.

            Model school has been extremely exciting and a lot of fun, but I will be excited to not have to write lesson plans this weekend or hear “Teacha, Teacha” yelled at me in class for a few weeks. Yes, I know I will be teaching for the next two years, but it will be so different. I will have the same students everyday (at model school different students seem to show up every day) and will be able to establish solid routines, transitions, and expectations. Rwandan students do this snapping hand raise that is more annoying than anything I’ve ever experienced in a classroom, except for when they start yelling “Teacha, please Teacha” on top of the snapping when trying to get me to call on them. I have put an end to it in most of my model school classes and will definitely let my students in Rango know that snapping and yelling “Teacha” will not go over well with me. Not only is it annoying, but it also disrupts the other students who are still thinking through their answers. As most of the volunteers have said, waiting a solid 5-10 seconds before calling on a student is great because it gives as many students as possible time to reach a conclusion and participate without the background noise of snapping and yelling from the stronger students..

            During model school, I have been teaching S1 and S2, which is the equivalent of 7^th and 8^th grade in the U.S. I am shocked every day by their intelligent thoughts that with a little more English could be perfected into some very strong and moving thoughts about social issues and life in Rwanda. I am also amazed by their ability to recite grammatical rules like it’s nobody’s business; half the time I have no idea what they are talking about (I know I need to brush up on my English grammar). The age range is pretty big in my classes (students are anywhere between 13 and 17), which is typical for Rwanda. The government has expanded from 6 years of free basic education, to nine, and starting next year to twelve years of free basic education, so people who were not able to pay school fees in the past are registering to go back to school and receive the free education that they now have a right to.

            Model school has been great for practicing some teaching techniques and activities that I wasn’t sure were possible in a Rwandan classroom with so many students. I have successfully done community mapping by having students draw in chalk on the classroom floor (they thought it was pretty cool), information gardens outside, small group work, a lot of pair work, and some successful individual writing assignments. Some of the classes are stronger than others, but it has been exciting to see the changes that have taken place over the last three weeks. The more interesting the topic, the more engaged the students and the more exciting and fun it is for me to teach. The challenge will be to maintain a high level of engagement everyday, but that’s all part of the fun. I’m looking forward to getting a head start on lesson planning for the year after seeing so many great lessons during model school. I can’t wait to have my own students to work with and be able to see the progress they make throughout each trimester and each year as a whole.