School Work

Along with cold weather and first snow last weekend, I came down with my first cold of the season. But, thanks to nightly election gatherings and concerts I had three whole nights without scheduled activities this week to recover during. I winterized my apartment and made some much needed progress on law school applications.

Work at the Municipality was understandably slow this week. Elections are on Sunday. There are nine candidates for mayor. That is a lot for such a small community and it seems like everyone is somehow personally involved. I’m interested to see what changes occur after the election results. I helped make a powerpoint of nature reserves and eco-paths in the area for some visitors from Macedonia. But, on a much more exciting note, I SUBSTITUTE TAUGHT for a teacher’s 5th, 7th, and 8th grade classes! I loved it. The 7th grade English class was the toughest: it’s the biggest class at school (18 kids) and a lot come from other villages so I don’t know them real well. Even so, it wasn’t bad. We reviewed homework and I introduced the present perfect tense.

I can’t believe how much I enjoyed substitute teaching. I’ve taught adults and I’ve taught kids in non-classroom settings, but this was my first time as a ‘real teacher,’ even if it was just as a substitute. Before I became a Peace Corps volunteer, I never really spent time with kids-I didn’t babysit or family members nearby with children younger than me. I never thought I would enjoy being around kids, but they’re great and I look forward to my activities at the school. It helps that the teachers and school director are fantastic, but beyond that, I love the general happiness and enthusiasm of the kids. It never fails to put me in a better mood when I walk to the school and hear a student call my name from the windows or run across the yard to meet me.

 I’m sure if I taught every day, it’d be a lot more difficult, but the kids behaved quite well.  Teaching them isn’t too different from teaching the adults, except the kids are  a lot easier to discipline. With older adults, it’s sort of awkward when they behave poorly and they are way worse about speaking out of turn or interrupting a struggling classmate.

With the scout groups, we worked more on Halloween. The older group discussed fundraiser ideas, made a poster for counting bottles, and talked about ideas for the Halloween party. They saw the half finished piñatas the younger group made and wanted to do the same, so that’s what we’ll work on next Tuesday.  I never would have guessed I’d be doing this much paper mache… While making decorations, the younger group went wild over the sequins and plastic googly eyes I received in a care package.

Once a week, I help lead an elective geography/ecology class for 5^th and 6^th graders (CIP class). This week, I tried teaching compass use. I’d observed another volunteer teaching it during a summer camp. He made it look so easy! My efforts sort of worked. I should have probably gone over it with the teacher ahead of time, because when I finished explaining and showing everyone how to use them and started asking them different directions to practice with; she re-explained and showed a different way.  They mostly ended up confused and lost interest. I’ll try again with the older scout group at a later time and see if it will work better, then maybe attempt again with the CIP.

After collecting the compasses, I passed out sidewalk chalk and a list of items that can be found in nature (something scary, something young, something without purpose, etc.).  The students selected three items to draw and then presented how they chose the images and discussed similarities/differences among the drawings. I think being outside and enjoying the mild weather made this activity a lot more popular than orienteering.