Lesson 2: Weekly Lesson Plans Are for the Weak.

          This Monday was my very first day of teaching!!! Even now, after succeeding in teaching the kids a couple lessons, I’m still pretty incredulous that anyone wants me to stand in front of their kids and teach them things.

            I teach at the Mbale Mission School, and if it had a motto, it would be “Go with the flow.”  It’s a beautifully laid-back blend of classes grouped by grade level and home schooling, which allows people without an education background or teaching license (like me) to hop on a plane and spend a year or so molding the minds of the missionary kids.  Things change a lot, so you’ve got to be flexible when one teacher leaves for two days to take her child to Kampala, another teacher leaves the next two days to drive her sister to the airport, and the new teacher (yours truly) gets sick and needs someone to cover her first class of the day…and all of this during the first week of school.  Following the lead of fellow teacher Emily, I read the chapter I would be teaching and constructed a lesson plan for science that involved writing the word “energy” for Monday’s lesson.  While this level of preparation wouldn’t necessarily fly in the States, it’s an appropriate approach for MMS.  My commute consists of opening the front door, walking about 15 feet to cross our driveway, and then entering the door of the school.  Most days traffic is light, and our guard dogs Kivu and Bandit are always outside to wish me a pleasant good morning.



            Currently, there are six kids at MMS, with four more joining us in February.  Right now, I’m the instructor for a first grade Bible and science class, a third grade math class, and a fifth grade math and science class.  So far, I enjoy my science classes the most, as I can decide to add in fun stuff like comparing the driving ranges of the Chevy Volt and Toyota Prius with my six year olds.  Math class can also be fun, once you trick your students into doing subtraction by asking them how much change they would receive back when purchasing a Star Wars Lego kit.  Of course, the kids themselves are a riot.  Exhibit A, Israel, who was adamant that I get his shoe in the picture.  His six-year old sister, Annalise, is especially adorable.  When I asked her to write something on her paper that she’d like to learn about in science class, she wrote down “God.”  God gets His very own class first thing in the morning, so I encouraged her to pick out something from God’s creation to study during science class.

            There’s never a dull moment around here. Even if you do start to get bored, chances are, the power could go out at any minute and send you scrambling to find candles and matches.  A general rule of thumb is that by the time you get the oven preheated and your leftover chicken spaghetti warmed up, the power will come on and make you wish you had waited a little longer so you could have used the microwave to prepare a less labor-intensive dinner.  Of course, you also share the house with some not-so-cuddly critters.  We use our bug zapper (which looks like an electric tennis racket) to get rid of any pesky mosquitoes.  A few days ago, I woke up to a gecko darting up my wall right by my face, and Emily’s visiting sister was slightly traumatized when she discovered a rat in our kitchen.  Unfortunately, the same rat decided it was a good idea to climb into a bucket of water I had used for a spirometer experiment in science class.  The next morning, the children were all very excited to show me said drowned rat.  (I decided against granting their requests to dissect it.)

            Pictures from this week include Israel showing off his shoe, and the younger children hard at work in language arts.