back to school

1st day of school! And of course everything goes just as planned. We had known since we got out of school in August that our 1st/2nd teacher wouldn’t be here until Oct 1. (the school board decided to hire him in March or april but didn’t get around to telling him until July and he had to give 3 months notice at his job). So it had been decided that Willeke Ter Haar and Dorothy would teach that class. well, Willeke has to take her other children into Lilongwe for school 2 or 3 times a week and usually that is Mondays and Fridays. So it turned into the first day being me and Dorothy in that class for the first day of school. Dorothy who was a weekday school principal and never did elementary and me also never done elementary—in charge of a split grade class. And no Chichewa speaker in the room. (and we thought these were things we’d worked out).

I think it went surprisingly well for the first day for all of us. of course, all our worksheets took ages longer than we imagined but we did it and I was still standing at the end of the day. 14 1st graders and 4 2nd graders. One new face who was able to do the worksheet very well. I had the first grade doing a page on consonants and the first sounds of the pictures. Look at the letter and cross off the picture that starts with that letter. The only problem was the pictures and their names. But we went through it and some seemed to get it which was encouraging. The 2nd grade did a math addition and subtraction worksheet. As they finished they could get a puzzle and sit quietly (there is once again not much on the walls and everything echoes so quietly is impossible really). After break we did a calendar exercise and then more worksheets. I was surprised when I heard the bell ring for school to be over. Not that I wasn’t exhausted, I just thought I was going to have to last much longer since I didn’t have a clock in the room yet.