The first week of school

So much has been happening here lately that I don’t even know where to start. This past week was the first week of school, and despite it being chaotic, it was the smoothest that I have seen school here reopen. I was excited to see that on the first day of school, all teachers were sitting down, teaching their students. Traditionally, the first three weeks of school are used for cleaning the school, and so much time is wasted. But this year, we made it a priority that the school would be cleaned and ready for the first day of school. Another accomplishment this year is that almost all of the teachers were actually at school on the first day of school!

I find that I have to remind myself continually that change is not going to happen overnight as I would like it to. And I need to remember that our school is doing so much better than it was four years ago. We are recognized in this area as having one of the best schools. These are all major accomplishments. But there is still a long way to go.

I sat down with one of our children who is in six grade and been in our school since first grade. As we started to read a book, I noticed she couldn’t read at all, so I started asking her the letter names. She only knew about half of the alphabet. Unfortunately, she is not the only student like this. There are children in our school who struggle to read., which is due to many different factors. Part of it is adequate teaching from the teachers at school; part of it is that these children, especially in the village, are not exposed to words at an early age, and they don’t have much to read in their daily lives. Still another part is that these children have grown up in a place that doesn’t value education. All of these factors need to be addressed for our children to succeed in school.

One of the biggest challenges here it to find ways to empower the teachers and give them the tools to help their students learn. This is something that I am always thinking about and praying for wisdom on what my interactions with the teachers should look like. Leading by example is what we are called to do in every aspect of our lives and that includes the work that I am doing here in the schools. I know that I need to model correct teaching to them, and I need to model to them the importance of education and investing in the lives of these children.

My days here seem so long at times, but when I look at all that has to be done, I know that it will go by so fast and I will be home wishing that I had had more time. Some projects that I want to invest myself in—knowing that they are not really what will bring about the change—are the relationships made while working on these projects.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I will be in the schools with the purpose and intent of modeling lessons to the teachers, specifically phonics lessons. I am excited to use this time to model to the teachers that there are so many activities that can be done with the limited supplies they have.

In the afternoons, I will be going to some of the smaller villages to have tutor time with the children there. The children in our village program struggle the most at school because they have so many factors against them and face so many things that keep them from their education. I want to really focus my time and energy on encouraging and helping these children. I hope that some good time with them every week will do that.

There are always so many other things that come up here, and my role usually involves more than just education. I am thankful for these times though because I want to be able to encourage and support the staff.