Leading by example...

One other challenge at school is that the teachers don't lead by example; e.g when the bell rings (or when the woman (who makes lunch and tea for the teachers and who unlocks the doors to the classrooms in the morning) sounds the gong, the kids are expected to go to the classrooms - and of course, so are the teachers. They, however, will often sit for another 10 min.talking and laughing, and then lazily wander to their respective classrooms. It sends the message that the teachers do not really value punctuality - but they still expect it from the students.
The other day, a little boy entered the classroom crying and said something in Nepali. I didn't understand what he was saying, but his earlobe was swollen and bleeding and I immediately took him to the health post - which, unfortunately was closed. Then I went back to the school to fetch one of the other teachers and within minutes there were 3 teachers and the lunch woman around me and the boy. The lunch woman bent down, took a scrap of dirty dusty newspaper - blew the dust away and started to remove the blood from the boy's ear. "No, no, no", I shouted, " - we need iodine or some other disinfectant". Luckily, they had iodine at the school, but no plaster, so I ran home as quickly as I could and got my little first aid kit.
When I went to dress the ear, 2 teachers were hunched over me and the boy as well as 20 curious kids. The teachers waved the kids away to give me more space - however, THEY kept standing there IN MY WAY, so I had to ask them to move as well. I guess it also has to do with the authority they seem to claim over the kids - I don't even want to go into them hitting the children and pinching the kids' ears really hard.

And the other day, it was apparently time to burn some trash - at least they sort of collect garbage in a big metal bin at the school and to get rid of the trash, they burn it. I looked out of the window to see if I could see where the smell came from and saw ALL of the teachers looking at the burning trash...amazing...For about 15-20 min, I think, there were NO teachers in the classrooms...

Bingo Curriculum

A dear friend of mine suggested to play bingo with the kids - this enhances their listening skills which together with speaking skills is something that is not practiced much in Nepal. The kids LOOOOOVE bingo! (Thanks for the tip, Loa!) Every morning, the kids will shout "miss, miss, 1-2-BINGO!!" So I promise that we will play bingo, but first we have to do simple additions. Most of the children are starting to understand how to add 2 to 3, 5 to 1, etc. I'm so proud of them. As a reward for doing math, we play bingo (and practice matching the numbers to whatever numbers I'm calling out. I would love to do this with images - like ball, monkey, etc. or maybe I'll even try writing down the words to see if there's any recognition on the children's part.
Yes, next week I'll try to do word bingo I think and see how that works out...


We also practiced body parts and did a little yes-or-no game to check if they would remember which were which. I'd line up the pupils next to each other behind an invisible line and point to my nose and ask: "Is this a nose?" Since the correct answer to this was yes, they would all jump one step forward. If I pointed to my nose and asked: "Is this a leg?" They would have to stay on the spot and not move. We continued this little game until everyone knew where the nose was located...

Another absolute HIT is the song/dance BOOGIE-WOOGIE which is the Danish name for Hokey-Pokey...but I think Boogie Woogie sounds more fun and the kids are ecstatic when we do this one! They also love "the Wheels on the Bus go Round and Round..." and hopefully they will be able to sing it by themselves by the time I leave. At the moment, it's mostly Sarita and I singing, but I'm sure they will learn soon.