Return to Kachere & Ikwele, and Chaphanji & Chimozi – May 23 & 24

Students "think, pair, share" to find the answer

Unlike our journeys to other villages the road to Kachere and Ikwele is paved until we turn off for the last several kilometers.  Even so, it takes roughly an hour and a half to reach the first village. 

Teacher Ida is doing a great job engaging all learners!

 At Kachere we found almost all the teachers present.  Mabuchi modeled one lesson for the head teacher and we observed the others.  Ida, the grade one and two teacher did an excellent job engaging the students and using math manipulatives (stones) to help the students understand the concept of adding money. She introduced the concept with lots of practice before getting out the pencil and paper!

Students use stones for "money" to solve the problems. 

Kachere is looking forward to having furniture which will be delivered and assembled sometime in the next few weeks. 

Some of the students at Ikwele

Ikewle has four government school and three volunteer teachers. 

Volunteer teacher monitoring his students

Some of the government teachers do not take much interest in our program but the volunteers and one government teacher show lot of enthusiasm for engagement strategies. 

Mabuchi and I both watched two teachers each.  The teachers show promise – with more practice and training the teachers will be able to implement the strategies well.

Government teacher teaches about adjectives

In the reflective conference after the lesson, both teachers I observed, were able to tell me what they would do differently next time they taught the same lesson to make it better. Reflecting after the lesson and articulating how to change it to be more effective is a difficult concept for most of the teachers we encounter in Eastern Province. I shared that my best teachers back home always had many ideas to make a lesson better. They both left the conversation smiling and feeling proud.

We picked up a few students on the way to school

The next day we returned to the most remote village, Chaphanji, where we observed two lessons.  As I mentioned the last time we visited this village, the students often do not attend school.  Today many showed up to see the “white woman” visiting the village again. 

Mabuchi conferences with the teachers

I observed Mr. Zimba (yes another one – it’s a very common last name here) who tried to teach primarily in English while Mabuchi observed Mr. Phiri (another common name) who taught in Tumbuka.  During the reflective conference after the lessons, it was obvious that Mr. Zimba understands many of the concepts and ideas of student engagement but needs more practice and coaching before he's able to fully implement.  Mr. Phiri needs more modeling.  I’m hoping the training will help these teachers.  

Mr. Zimba, Mabuchi, Mr. Zozi and Mr. Phiri

The headman of the village always comes to greet me and takes an interest in what we are doing.  Unfortunately something happened to my photo card and my pics from this part of the day are no longer on my computer.  You cannot see the pumpkin the headman's wife prepared for us that provided a nice snack before continuing on to Chimozi.

We find the school empty - the children have left to earn money for the PTA

When we arrived at Chimozi we found out that the students had been sent to work in the fields to raise money for a lunch for the PTA.  There will be a parent meeting with the parents, school committee, and teachers with lunch provided.  Thus the need to fund raise for the lunch.  We rescheduled for Friday and will hopefully see all the teachers and students present.