1st Day of School 2011 at AI Steenkamp Primary School

Today was another amazing day. I love being around kids! Today was the first day of school at the primary schools here. We were warned that it would be chaotic, and it was. I loved it though. The kids were so full of joy and were so cute in their little uniforms. The opening ceremonies was amazing with all the learners clumped together. I love being at a Christian school and watching the learners and teachers pray and sing unto the Lord. It is a totally different feel from our public schools in America.

Once the opening ceremonies were over, made my way to my classroom where I found no one. Eventually I found Mrs. Emma wandering around trying to figure out where to get 8 more desks. (There were two teacher work days, but it was amazing how much had been left undone and thus the chaos of the first day with students running around and desks and chairs being moved from classroom to classroom, textbooks being located and distributed to teachers, learners still being assigned to different classes, etc.) Our learners will still with their grade 6 teacher for the first part of the morning, so I just put a chair outside our door and watched everything happen as if I was watching an entertaining movie. Eventually, our learners joined us and I got to get started getting to know them. I only met my grade 7A class today which is my smallest group.

My teacher was in and out (mostly out) the rest of the day after saying hello to the learners and giving them their schedules. Thus, I was left to manage and entertain the children for a good 4 hours of time. There were these 22 learners that I hung out with for pretty much the whole day with just me and them. They are in grade 7 so they are about 12 years old. I started by telling them a lot about the USA and answering many questions they had about my life and where I come from. Then we had a break. After the break, I asked them if they wanted to learn a song. They were very excited about this, so I taught them the On A Day Like This (you know the camp song with the clapping and snapping and nanner nannering and bulla bulla etc.) They loved it and asked to do it over and over. Then one boy said to me, "Miss teach us another one." Delighted, at their enthusiasm, I decided to teach them the Rock My Sword My Shield song which they also loved. I realized halfway through though that they didn't really get the words from me saying them, so I wrote them out on the board. Several kids took out paper and wrote down the words so they could take them home and sing the song later. It was amazing and I wish I could have gotten a video clip of it. I was made to be a teacher, this is my element, I feel so free when I am in front of kids. I can't wait to start teaching them things next week :)

For the last part of the day, I began trying to learn their names. I got most of them down I think, but I won't see them for a week so we will see how well I retain them. Their names are as follows: Tracey, Maveline, Cindy, Paulina, Arnoldus, Jeffery, Lloyd, Ishandly, Jumarie, Raullen, Algene, Freda, Chauntel, Libertine, Geraldine, Eugene, Andy, Trevor, Kerly, Andria, Sambalo, Dugary. I am usually pretty good at learning names, but it can be pretty difficult here when I can't understand the child when they say their name. Cindy wrote this list of their names out for me which helps so that I can read them while I say them and look at the learner.

We leave for the north tomorrow morning and I am really excited!

For a few artsy photos of this day see http://misswhetstine.blogspot.com/2011/01/1st-day-of-school-2011-at-ai-steenkamp.html