The first day were were able to observe at schools, we were at Lukamatano School outside of Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. Lukamatano School serves students preschool through grade 9. We left Mt. Zion at 6:00am to try and avoid traffic, but without luck! We did not arrive at school until 9:00am. We were able to observe in a class that was as close to our normal teaching level as possible. I was in a grade 8 science class to begin with.
Grade 8 science consisted of a human anatomy lesson focusing on the cardiovascular system. I was even allowed to answer a few questions, to which the students all cheered for me! Students in this class were all so eager to answer questions, due in large part to the enthusiasm of the teacher. Watching this teacher with his pupils was refreshing. He had so much energy and made the lesson exciting for everyone involved.
Carrie and I also had the privilege of teaching a lesson in the English class. They were learning to write business letters and we were asked to teach how we in America write business letters. There were actually quite a few differences. In Zambia, they are told to state their age, gender, and to include where they are from. We informed them that we are not required to include this type of information in our business letters, but we may be asked if we want to volunteer the information later for a survey.
The normal school day at Lukamatano School runs from 8:00am to 12:00pm with a break around 10:00am and lunch after the last class. The reason they only go until 12:00pm is for students who have a great distance to walk to school. Some pupils walk over 4 miles one way just to get to school.
Following the observation at school, we were able to tour the clinic which was simple, but also fairly modern. They had a maternity wing, an x-ray room, a pharmacy, and a nursery. The clinic has a group of people who volunteer their time to make rounds to over 200 patients who are homebound because of HIV/AIDS. The volunteers take medicine around which is free (because of a government program I believe is what the director of the program told us) and they also make sure the patients are eating as it is crucial when taking the HIV/AIDS medicine.
On Tuesday, we traveled again into Lusaka, this time to Our Lady School. This school was considered a private school, and had students preschool through grade 12. On this day, we were able to observe in classes specific to our teaching level, so I was able to observe in grades 10-12.
Grade 12 was a chemistry lab, and there was 8 students in this lab. The instructor stood at the front of the class, completing the lab, students involvement was limited to observations made on the test tubes the instructor passed around after he explained and then completed the experiment. This specific lab was one we did in biology at Dakota Valley where students ran different tests on unknown substances to determine if they were fats, carbohydrates, or proteins. At Our Lady School, the pupils were expected to know the test for each substance and explain it to the instructor before he completed the test, and then they passed around the test tube to record their observations of the test.
Grade 11 was a math class where students were working on ratios. There were four examples on the board that they were required to work on solving themselves and then they could volunteer to complete the example of their choice on the board.
Grade 10 was a geography class in which we learned about the International Date Line and time zones. I was able to talk a little bit about America and how it is split into 4 different time zones and how where I live was 7 hours behind Zambian time (when it was 12pm in Zambia, it was 5am at my home). Before we were able to discuss this, students took notes from the board that the teacher wrote straight from the book.
This school started at 8:00am and concluded at 1:00pm. They also had a break, where most every student had a snack or purchased a snack at the school store.
It was interesting to compare the two schools and get an idea about just how different and similar African education is from American education. We also had a base to build from for our instruction at Redeemer School. Little did we know that we would need to use so much of it!
Next posting will be about our first 3 days at Redeemer School.
Thanks for reading!
