Teaching in Zambia

This week was my second full week working in the school, and it was awesome!  There are four grades from kindergarten through 3^rd grade, and there are about 20 kids in each class.  They show up in the morning around 7:00 for breakfast, then the school day goes from 8:00-12:00, then they eat lunch.  It’s a short day, so we try to make the most of the time we have in the classroom.  There are so many things that are completely different from schools in the United States, so I have to adjust a lot about the way I think about teaching.  Of course, one of the biggest challenges is working with students who are learning English as a second language.  Thankfully, the 3^rd graders know enough English that I can teach any subject and they can, more or less, understand me. 

My 3rd grade class!

Since it had been so long since I had taught in a classroom I had felt like I’d lost a bit of my passion for teaching, so all this week I was praying that God would renew my love for teaching young kids.  The Lord certainly answered that prayer!  Despite the many frustrations of teaching in a school with only a fraction of the resources available to teachers in the US, I have fallen in love with teaching all over again.  It is so exciting to see the children understand the material I’m teaching, and see them hungering for more information.  Of course, not all students are as eager to learn as others, but my goal for the next two months is to teach these kids how to love learning.  So even if I leave here and they still can’t read or write or tell time, if they understand the joy of learning I will consider my time in Africa to have been successful.      

 As I said, there are many differences between this school and ones in the US.  Here we have no administration, besides one of the teachers being the Head Teacher.  That means that there’s very little support for the four teachers in the school, and they’re more or less left on their own to figure out lessons and schedules.  The curriculum is very basic and not well organized, so the teachers really need to be able to supplement their lessons with other sources.  The problem is, there are no other sources available to them.  For all my teacher friends out there, imagine trying to teach with no pictures, or print outs, or Smart Boards.  The teachers can’t make copies of things, so if they want to make a worksheet, they do it by hand.  There are very few good books for beginning readers, not to mention there’s very little time to spend even teaching reading with only 3 ½ hours of actual classroom time.  It’s all too easy for kids to slip through the cracks, and I have several 3^rd graders who can’t read at all.  The students are all orphans coming from extremely difficult home lives.  Most of them live in villages with no electricity or running water, and where literacy is not even something people can fathom.  These kids don’t get educational support from home, so the task of teaching them lies solely on the teachers. 

 It’s no easy task to teach in a place like this, and I know that when I get to teach in America again, I’ll never ever complain about a lack of resources or support from admin.  The scary thing is, it’s way worse in the government schools out in town.  At least for us, we have people in the US who have sent some school supplies to help.  And at those schools there can be 80 kids in one classroom with only one teacher!  So despite the difficulties I’m facing right now, I know we’ve got it good compared to others. 

Students eating breakfast before school starts

 You might think it’d be nearly impossible to teach here, but it’s actually been very rewarding even after just two weeks.  We might not have all the nice materials in western schools, but teaching is still fun!  The kids are incredibly sweet, and many of them really do want to learn.  What they need most is teachers who are committed to helping them reach their potential.  Maybe that sounds cliché, but here in Zambia, it’s the truth.  Without an education, these children will be stuck in the cycle of poverty where daily life is a mere struggle for survival.  We want to give these kids a fighting chance for something better, and that’s what this school is all about!