Part of my brief here is to teach at the local schools, a day a week, but December is their long summer hols so I didn't start until January. We decide on the subject and prepare the lesson plans which we try to make as interactive as possible to keep us all awake, particularly for afternoon lessons in the airless, sultry classrooms.
I've really enjoyed it although some of the classes have been more successful than others. The primary school children don't understand much English, and my Kiswahili is at pre pre-school level, so everything needs translating.
Kichangani primary school having survived 'Deforestation and Overgrazing':
The older secondary school classes are pretty fluent in English if you're careful about the vocab you use.
Kichangani secondary school's environmental club after a 'Wildlife management' lesson:
Morning break at Igota secondary school:
There are a couple of rules that all children need to follow:
1. Everyone must have short hair. This made life a little tricky for me as I identified a lot of the local girls by their amazing hairdos but they all vanished overnight on 5th January.
2. Everyone must bring to school a small hand broom for tidying the school grounds.
Kindergarten children with their brooms:
Even in the holiday working groups from the school children have to go and tidy up the school grounds:
Corporal punishment is alive and well in the schools. I saw a few beatings! There was a much more entertaining punishment when 2 classes who had failed tests had to jog up and down in the quad chanting, "We are stupid", to the delight of the younger children. The stupid ones are on the right below.
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