Reflections on Second Day of Teaching

(morning of 22nd-after first class)
Wow. I woke up this morning feeling so much better. I slept soundly and my head feels better. As an added bonus it's sunny outside! Even my bad dream ended on a good note. Unfortunately Lucille is now sick. This morning I was sure she got it from me but after spending another hour with the kids I think she could just as easily caught something from them.

The older kids know so much but I can't pin down the little ones. Most can do the alphabet and know some vocabulary. If I could get them to focus I think they could spell also but that's much easier said than done. Lucille had the older ones composing sentences which went well and I focused on the little ones, finally just teaching them the names of some pictures in their books. The duck is a chicken and they haven't quite gotten the 'moon' concept yet but we made some progress. They nearly always know which people are boys and which ones are girls so I figure that's something. I'm reminding myself that getting in the groove will take time. My only other idea is reading to them, maybe the 'Just So Stories'? Then how can I turn that into an exercise? Tell me what the story is about in their own words?

Please send me ideas! The little ones will be the hardest I think.

(after math class)
The small ones struggle with writing numbers, either that or they can't be bothered. The older boys know good addition, subtraction, and some multiplication. Our smart kid whom I can't remember the name of can do six digit multiplication problems. I can't check his work because I can't remember how to do it! 786352 multiplied by 413790 is no problem for him. Thank god he only knows a little division. During their nepali class lucille saw work doing order of operations out of his book.

When we ask them to write shapes on the board one boy cheats and writes it on his hand. Holding there attention is nearly impossible let alone getting it in the first place.

However, at least outside of the classroom, they are not really taxing. At least three times a day a face will appear in our doorway, look at us then run away. At night we always get a few goodnights spoken through the open window. Mostly they just play with each other.

My cough is getting better. Well, better in the sense that I'm coughing up more of the stuff in my lungs. My nose is stuffy but my head feels so much better. I think I might be capable of handling this. The food is good, I'll always keep snacks around and back-up water. I'm even getting used to the toilet. A flushing squat toilet is something I never thought I'd come across.