Today I was asked to fill in for a teacher in a 6th grade class. Another teacher was sick so went home early. One of the 6th grade teachers was asked to fill in for the sick teacher, so he had me take over his class. Fifty 11-year-olds in one hot classroom--what an experience! These teachers have such large classes and very few resources. It's amazing what they do and how the students learn given the limitations that they are faced with. Because I was prepared to work only with the preschool kids, I really had nothing in my "bag-of-tricks" for the older classes. So, I taught them some of the songs I taught the younger classes and read some books. They didn't seem to mind; they were just excited to have me there. After I exhausted the songs and books, I said I would answer any questions they had about me or America. They asked the typical questions: where do you live? How old are you? What are the names of your children/husband. Someone asked if I've seen Donald Trump! Ha! Someone else asked me to sing the national anthem, so I sang it in my very best, baseball-stadium-worthy voice 😂. After that, they sang the Ghana national anthem for me 😊. All in all, it was a successful day. They call me "teacher Ewurama", which means I'm a lady born on Saturday.
After 2 hours of standing in a hot classroom and basically yelling so everyone could hear me, I was ready to call it a day. However, they were expecting me at the library. So off I went. More students showed up today, so it was crowded. They kids crowd around me, which makes it even hotter, which means I am dripping with sweat every time these kids see me. Not a pretty sight.
Hate cut this short, but I can't keep my eyes open any longer! Good night!
I'm exhausted for you! I remember how exhausted I was after a day of substituting and that was in a much cooler classroom with far fewer students. But what an experience for you! Believe it or not reading about your past couple days in the classroom is making me miss teaching!
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