Seeds, Space, Algebra

On Tuesday, I told the school that Friday would be my last day volunteering with them. I really do enjoy working with these kids, but I know that I want to be doing something different than teaching right now. Also, the whole lack of role or purpose at school has been a bit disheartening.

When I told the kids I’d be leaving at the end of the week, they looked devastated and tears were shed. This is now the second goodbye in three months that I’ve had to say to students. In Honduras I had to grit my teeth against my shaking voice, hold back flooding tears, and try with all my might to avoid bawling as I told my kids of my impending departure. Here, three weeks of teaching, versus four months, was not the same, but emotional nonetheless. Unlike in Honduras, the thing about me leaving here is that I know the kids likely won’t ever have another foreign or white teacher in their lives. I’m completely leaving them alone – there’s no one to step into my place. 

I’ve spent the week teaching Class Six algebra, a topic I’m positive I have no idea how to teach. The hardest part is that I don’t have a sense of what math the kids already have to back up the new knowledge. A few days ago I was surprised to learn that the kids never learned how to use negative numbers. Though I am very glad I had a genuinely-certified teacher at their age, I think I’ve actually succeeded okay in teaching them basic algebra this past week.

During science class on Thursday, Class Six announced to me that they were supposed to begin a new unit – the solar system. After checking a textbook, I set beans and maize to soak for an experiment the next day about seed parts, to wrap up our plant unit, and commenced to teaching about the solar system. I quickly realized that the class had little knowledge of the solar system. They had not heard of gravity, and, hence, did not understand planetary orbits or the Earth’s rotation. As soon as I realized the limits of their knowledge, I set the textbook down and began to teach them pretty much everything I know about gravity, planets, and our solar system. Let me just say, it has been years and years since I learned anything about outer space in any sort of school science class. So I pulled it all together as best I could. I answered every single one of their questions, explained things over and over again, and hoped against hope that what I was telling them was correct information. I clarified that Pluto is no longer a planet in our solar system (though, back in the day when I was taught, Pluto still was.) I answered questions about why we can’t feel the Earth spinning, can gravity be found located at the exact middle of the earth, and whether aliens have ever visited the United States. It went much better than I’d have thought.

On Friday, I took Class Six to the science lab to experiment with our soaked seeds. We were supposed to observe and inspect them, and then break them open to identify the parts inside the seed. This was something I had definitely never studied in science class, even as a child. With common sense, I’d managed okay teaching about flower pollination and fertilization. But seed parts was a topic pretty far outside my domain of science, and here I was trying to teach the kids. Now, Class Six has the most questions of any group of students that I have ever encountered, which is truly fantastic. The class period consisted of me studying a textbook in the lab, kids all around me breaking open beans and maize and examining the components, asking question after question, which I could not really answer. I tried my best and eventually let the class dissolve into flicking half maize kernels around the room.

After that science period, I planned to just quickly review in the classroom the process of seed germination. But I had forgotten the number of questions they kids would inevitably have. For literally 25 minutes, the kids asked me every possible question about flowers and seeds and plants. I answered every one, hoping I was giving at least reasonably accurate answers. Unfortunately for me, the actual science teacher came into the room at that point to take pictures of me with the kids (after watching him teach and seeing him defer questions to me, I think he was relieved the kids were asking everything of me, and not of him – he would not have been able to provide more accurate answers.) For some reason, he decided to film this impromptu Q & A session. So, if a video of Eliza trying her best to be an adequate science teacher ever surfaces on YouTube, this is the back-story. The pretend teacher in the video is me, attempting to answer questions about plants that I’m not real qualified to answer. We’ll keep this video away from future employers.

I do spend a lot of time teaching Class Six, the class to which I have become closest, but the week was full of lessons with kids of all ages. Lots of science, lots of PE, some math, and even some creative arts. Creative arts proved a bit difficult with absolutely no materials available for any form of visual art.

It’s been an interesting time at the school. I’ve seen things here that, to say the least, I didn’t see coming. These included a student in the front row of Class Seven clipping his nails throughout my lesson, a sports lunch consisting of half a loaf of white bread and a bottled soda for each kid, students wearing socks so threadbare that no bottom fabric remains, an 8-year-old standing on a two-inch-wide window ledge while washing windows six feet above the ground, students drinking yogurt out of cupped hands.

Tomorrow I’ll head back to the school to say final goodbyes to everyone. Though it was brief, this entire deep-end experience was everything from surreal to wildly entertaining to heart-melting to enormously difficult.