Installment #13--Heating up

Tuesday was pretty typical. I was a bit tired from the disco and lack of sleep, and there were a lot of people roaming the streets again in the morning (market day runs until about midday on Tuesday). Our bike ride to school was pretty typical, the groups of little children chasing and yelling “munu!”, the primary kids stopping and staring, and the secondary kids saying “good morning sir.” School was average. I am starting to get a little frustrated that nothing is really happening in the way of progress. I teach some classes and Charles observes, and he teaches some classes and I observe, and occasionally we team teach together. I am struggling to get any reflection out of Charles on the lessons about what is working well or not well, he isn’t writing lesson plans so we cannot discuss how to adapt the lesson to make it more students centered (much teaching in Uganda, and almost all of Charles practice, is chalk and talk with some student question and answer). I have tried several strategies to encourage some reflection (and thereby facilitate some change), but have been unsuccessful so far. The rest of the day ran as usual, and there was no disco music.

Wednesday, my frustrations really began to form. I observed three classes and taught one today. The biggest frustration that I have is that, because I am struggling to reflect with my partner teacher, no real change is occurring in the classroom. I keep trying to remind myself that we are only a week and a half into the exchange, and that there is still time for major things to happen. The most frustrating part though, is that I can’t totally shed the fear that my presence here will go for naught. The possibility of me leaving, and everything being the same as before I came, is a scary thought. There was a small breakthrough in the afternoon though. Charles was teaching our fourth class of the day, and had not prepared a lesson. I think that he intended to plan during lunch, but was instead called into a budget meeting. When he was done, he barely had time to grab a plate of food, eat, and head out to class. The class went all right, but Charles was obviously frazzled (the fact that I was watching probably made it bad). After the class though, he did mention that he wanted to talk about lessons for the rest of the week. We didn’t teach until 11:30 on Thursday, so I suggested we plan a lesson together in the morning. Charles happily agreed, and I went home from school feeling slightly better. After dinner, I met Balu (another teacher at school) and Charles on the front porch, and we talked for some time. At a little after 9:00, I moved back into the compound and tried to get to sleep. Unfortunately, Wednesday night is Ladies night at the same disco (the one right behind our rooms) that hosted the festivities on market day. Alas, it would be another long night.