Day 28 Collective teachings 1/28/14

Today Ryan and I gave our lessons at the all girls catholic school. We were dropped off at 9am. We met up with Moz and he showed us the classroom that we would be in all day. The room wasn't what we were expecting. There was a black board with chalk, five long benches, and two small tables pushed against the wall. The first class was a group of twenty fifth graders. Ryan instructed this class while Moz and I sat in the back of the room. Moz took notes and observed, while I prepared my lesson and watched periodically. The lesson was well planned but didnt go as smoothely as he would have liked. For one, the four large doors to the classroom were left open, which allowed for the noise from the hall to echo through the room. Second, the benches were spread out, so the kids in the front of the room were participating, while those in the back slacked off. None of the girls had backpacks, which meant all of their binders, papers, and pencils were sprawled out on the floor. This created a major distraction from the  supplies rolling around. After the lesson was over, we took a minute to evaluate the lesson and make some changes. The second class was another fifth grade group, and Ryan taught the same lesson, but made a few changes to the room. He shut all the doors, got rid of two benches, pulled the remaining benches closer to the front and had all the girls put their supplies to the side of the room. It was amazing how these few changes, drastically improved the class participation and behavior. The lesson went really well, and Moz was impressed. After his second lesson, It was my turn to teach. I had a class of twenty fourth graders. The goup was perfect. The girls knew most of the vocabulary I taught them, which made the lesson go smoother. For the second part of the lesson, I had to teach them the steps of cleaning a cut. I had them do a relay race . One girl from each team would come to the front and hold out their finger, then in a relay fashion the rest of their team would run up and perform all the steps of the first aid process; rinse, cream, bandaid, gauze. The girls went wild, jumping up and down screaming with excitement. After the chaos of the game we worked on the worksheet that was provided, and before I knew it the class was over. Moz was relaly impressed, and said that went as perfect as it could have gone. I felt happy. Ryan and I had a two hour break for lunch before we had to be back to teach the next lesson. We left the school and went to eat at a little kiosk in front of the school. The place had a menu, but it was all in thai, and the workers didnt know English, so we ordered the only thing we knew how to say in thai "Cow pot guy" (chicken fried rice). We sat down and discussed our lessons. The food came quickly, and we scarfed it down not realizing how famished we felt. After lunch we walked back on to campus and into the empty classroom. We still had an hour before our next lesson, so we set up the room with our teachinng tools and ran through the lesson together. The topic we had to teach was on safety. We needed to teach the first graders a list of vocabulary words, and then teach them if the items were safe, or unsafe to bring to school. We ran through our lessons to make sure we were prepared, and we divided up the responsibilities of leadership and supporting roles for each activity. Around 1:50, Moz came back into the room, and the first graders began to stream in. They were a rowdy bunch. We introduced the concepts of safe and unsafe, and showed the kids flashcards, having them give us a thumbs up for safe and a thumbs down for unsafe. We had a few joksters who would laugh and give us a thumbs down for everything. After we tested their knowledge with a relay race. We had them crawl to us, grab an object off the ground, and put it in the box labeled safe or the box marked unsafe. The girls enjoyed the game. Shortly after, our time was up and the kids left. From here another group of fourth graders came in and I taught them the same lesson on first aid safetey. Around 3:30 our lessons were completed. Moz told us how impressed he was, and he joked that if tomorrow goes half as smoothely as today went he will be happy. When we got back to our apartment we knocked on Nick's door to give him a feww pointers. We told him the small tricks of closing the door, moving the kids in closer, and having them put their materials to the side of the room. He was thankful for our advice. We told him to stop by tomorrow after his lesson and let us know how his went. The day went back quickly and we realized it was already 4:45, and we had the mens basketball leauge at 5, so we got dressed and headed to the courts. We played for a couple of hours, getting a good workout in. When we left we were hungry, so we stopped by the boomerang too have dinner. We were more than satisfied after demolishing two plates of chicken fried rice and yellow curry. On our walk back home we came across a woman cooking rottee. There was a group huddled around to order. This elderly woman amazed me. She moved so fast. The was cooking banana rottee, cheese rottee, and other different varieties. You could see the experience and hard work through her hands. She had burns on her knuckles from the hot grease. The way she poured, flipped,chopped, and prepared was entertaining to watch. We were the last  in line, and when she handed us the rottee she wiped her brow in exageration and smiled brightly. We clapped  and told her "great job", and she responded with a bow. Back at the room we started listening to the audiobook "Way of the Peaceful Warrior" by Dan Millman. The book was amazing. It was inspiring, captivating, and easy to listen to. we stayed up listening to it for as long as we could until we drifted off into a deep sleep.