Kampala Day 2

We started our second day by visiting the Kampala Quality Primary School.  Upon arrival we introduced ourselves to Jennifer the head master of the school.  She welcomed us to the school and showed us Jenna and I to two different P4 (primary 4) classrooms.  In the classroom I observed there were 56 students, one lead teacher and two other supporting teachers.  The first thing I noticed when I walked in the classroom was how giggly the students and even the teacher were together, the class had a very playful atmosphere, something I was not expecting to find after talking with Amos the day before.   The classroom just as they were finishing up language arts.  Students were reciting different verb tenses.  For homework students were expected to fill in sentences with specific verb forms.  The teacher kept emphasizing how important it was to keep their hand writing neat.  Later when talking to the teacher he told me they are graded on it and was surprised to learn that I don’t grade on handwriting in the classrooms I’ve been in.

As language arts finished the lead teacher left the classroom and one of the teachers who was assisting took over.  For Math students were reviewing the nights homework.  I really was really impressed by the math teacher; she used a lot of techniques in the classroom that I’ve been working toward using including movement, using multiple explanations and a lot of student participation.  I was so impressed at her ability to keep 56 students engaged in the content she was teaching.  Some of the techniques she used that really stuck out to me was during a description of a fraction problem she gave both a numeric explanation and a pictorial explanation and expressed that either way of finding the answer was equally accepted.  Additionally after she noticed the class was getting a little antsy she played “midnight dancers” where students have to listen to a direction stand up or sit down and do the corresponding action, if they did it incorrectly they got out of their seats and came to the front f the class to be the mid night dancers.  By the end of the game all the mid-night dancers were boys, everyone had a good laugh and the students returned to their seats.  Additionally I thought her method of classroom management was very interesting.  When a student had repeatedly miss behaved she asked him to leave the class, when he was ready to come back in the classroom he asked her if he could and she told him to ask his peers if could rejoin the class because they were the ones who he was harming with his behavior.  Overall I was very impressed by this teacher.  She was able to keep 56 students engaged.  The classroom was very teacher centered, however she took many opportunities to keep students engaged.  I don’t know how I could have done a better job with 59 students Primary 4 students. 

After visiting the school Enoch, Edson, Jenna and I took a break for lunch at the Salsa restaurant, which specializes in Afro-Mexican cuisine.  The restaurant is owned by one of Enoch’s former students and is “pocket-book friendly”.   (The day before we also ate at Salsa restaurant after Jenna and I turned down a restaurant that was less pocket-book friendly meaning our friends Enoch and Edson would have to go somewhere else, which we thought was ridiculous so we went with.) It was buffet style so we got to try many different foods including Matoke, G’nut sauce, Tilapia stew (from near by lake Victoria), chicken, a white maize dish, Irish potato, possibly cassava, beans, and rice.  All of the food was delicious; I especially liked the white maize dish, beans, rice and chicken.

After lunch we made it the Uganda Museum and Enoch gave us a tour of all of the exhibits.  This is a museum Enoch is very proud of and it was very interesting going through it with his knowledge and expertise added to the exhibits.

After the museum Enoch dropped us off at the MUGH (Makerere University Guest House) and instructed us to get some rest to prepare for our journey to Kasese the next day.