A week of MANY firsts!

Sorry I haven't updated lately! We have been so busy with school, after-school stuff, and crossing things off of our "South Africa bucket list".

Two weeks ago started our days of many firsts! I finalized my schedule at Pearson, got copies of textbooks for the classes I will be teaching. Their textbooks here are very interactive; including pictures, diagrams, activities, and assessments. The week before I had been observing four different Science teachers classes to get a feel of how each different teacher teach and whether they follow along with the text or not. I was happy to see that almost all the teachers follow the path of the textbook as well as leave time for discussion and relating the content they are learning to the student's lives. Right now the grade 8's are learning about the ecosystem, photosynthesis, food chains, etc. and the grade 9's are learning balancing chemical equations and leading into acids and bases.

Sunset outside our window one evening

Some classes I will stick with; teaching them every time we meet (which I usually meet each class of students 3x a week) and some classes I do not teach them every time I see them. I am working under two female science teachers and two male science teachers. I chose Mr. Jansen (pronounced Yansen) to be my "official" Cooperating Teacher, which means he will do my official evaluations that will be sent back to NKU. I made copies of the evaluation forms so that the other three teachers can evaluate my lessons as well so I will have more feedback of my teaching from four different teachers.

Planning isn't so bad when this is my view :)

Out of Mr. Jansen's classes I chose to teach the grade 8E2's. The students are grouped by grade level and language. Some groups would be 8A2 (A standing for Afrikaans speaking). I came to school ready to teach my lesson 4th block and ended up teaching it three times to three different classes. The other science teachers heard I was beginning to teach and asked me on the spot if I could also teach their classes as well! I was anxious and a little nervous but I went for it and my lessons went great! The students here love us American teachers and they love our "accents". They are extremely curious about America so when I taught my first lesson I introduced myself and explained where I lived in the states but also made sure they understood that when I am teaching they must not ask me irrelevant or personal questions. The students here are so curious and have so many questions we can actually bribe them by saying "If everyone is quiet and productive I'll let you ask me questions about America the last two minutes of class". I haven't used that one yet but it will come in handy! The students are so eager to learn and have SO many questions and when I taught my first lesson of the day it threw off my lesson because I got distracted by wanting to answer all of their questions. I feel like sometimes I have to pull teeth to get my students in America to ask the questions these students were asking. The next day when I taught I was MUCH better at holding off answering questions until the end and was able to stay focused on my lesson.

My Xhosa notes!

Murray from The Freewalkers invited us over Thursday for Xhosa lessons and our very first Braai. When I first found out I was coming to teach in South Africa a couple friends teased me saying my students would speak in "clicks" over here, wear animal hides as clothes, and all those other first world country thoughts that comes to some peoples mind when they think of South Africa. Come to find out there IS a "click" language and some of my students do speak it. It is called Xhosa (pronounced K-osa). We told Murray when we first met him that we would like to learn some of the clicks so he arranged lessons for us from Murray and Jordy's good friend Thando. Murray and Jordy's house is amazing! It looks like you walked into a farmhouse/rustic/African Pinterest board! Murray gave us girls little notebooks to write new words in and all of us girls sat around while Thando began teaching us the three basic "clicks". It's really hard to describe the language so I made sure I included this video that Murray made of our lessons:


<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/video/embed?video_id=10151467479755266" width="320" height="240" frameborder="0"></iframe>



We learned A LOT about Xhosa culture, history, and traditions from Thando. He taught us all about how children are named and every name has a meaning behind it. He talked about his family and how when a boy decides he is ready to become a man they must go live in the bush (woods in the middle of nowhere) for a month by themselves and during this time they are circumcised and must not be visited by a female at all during this time. At the end of the month there is a ceremony where the boy becomes a man and the women paint the man red which must stay on them for six months, this is so when they go home they are respected and known as a man. Anyone younger than them must refer to them as "Boetie," which means brother in Xhosa.

Nicole, Emily, and Thando sitting around the fire.

After an hour and a half of Xhosa lessons we all sat around the fire and Murray began to braai all of the delicious meats he had prepared for us to eat! Huge steaks, chicken breasts, and sausages as well as garlic breads and vegetable salad. Since Jordy is from the states and understands some of the girls "need" of ranch on everything Jordy made us girls some ranch dressing from a Hidden Valley packet her mom sent her. We enjoyed our first Braai, good conversation, and amazing company! We were all slipping into food comas and we all had to teach the next day so we packed up in "Big Red" (the Freewalker van) and Murray took us home.

 Another first I had this week was seeing a water polo match. Pearson High School was hosting a water polo tournament  Friday and Saturday and the first game started 10minutes before school let out.

The students all gathered around the Olympic size water polo pool on Pearson campus