I recently saw an article on CNN about 24 hours in the life of a kindergarten teacher. I loved reading it and seeing that I'm not alone in the challenges of teaching and specifically teaching kindergarten. I am surrounded my teachers to share in the struggles and challenges of teaching, however in our K-12 school, I am the only kindergarten teacher. In fact, I’m the only kindergarten teacher using an American curriculum at an accredited school in the entire country. Something someone recently pointed out to me and has been a rather humbling (and overwhelming) thought lately.
And since its been a little bit (ok a lot of bit) of time since I've posted in this blog, I thought I've finally come up with idea of something to share. I know many of you have been asking me to update my blog, but I have to be honest, its hard! Now that I'm in my third year of teaching and living here in Kigali, my life here feels so normal that its hard for me to think of things that might be interesting to share. Hopefully this will be interesting...
So this is how my day, TODAY (and most days) has looked like:
5:30: Roll out of bed and go for a run (Disclaimer: This NEVER happens! Today was the first in forever that I've actually gotten up to run).
I throw on my shoes and force my contacts in. I get outside and the sun has just come up, the sky is gorgeous and I can see hills of shadows and fresh sunlight. It's also a cool and perfect 70 degrees.
I get home and start getting ready for school. It's not long before I discover we're out of water. The one time I decide to work out and get sweaty in the morning (not to mention the fact that I hadn't showered in two days to save water), now I can't shower. Then I remember that the other day I had filled up a bucket of water when the power was out. (When the power is out, the water pump can't work so water comes out of faucets in a very small trickle, it took about 20 minutes to fill this 4 gallon bucket and then the power came back on so I never needed it.). Bucket bath it is! I was now very thankful for the morning run because this bucket of water that had been sitting for several days was of course cold.
Morning routine continued, then I hopped on my scooter, spent 5 minutes getting it to start, then sped off to school.
6:45: Get to school, go to my classroom and start to organize things for the day. I grab my math workbook to make copies for today. We have one copy machine for all the teachers to use and it's pretty unreliable. Today I was in luck though, only one person to wait on and my whole class set of copies came through with no paper jams, no power outages, no messed up copies, and no running out of ink or paper (this rarely happens!). I finish getting everything ready for the day and kids show up at 7:45. I stand outside my door to greet them and send them off to the play ground.
8:00: Bell rings and my kids storm down the stairs from the playground and line up in the courtyard. We count off and everyone is here! We walk inside and do out typical morning routing; unpack, morning work, prayer together, worship, and calendar time.
8:30 to 10 is optimal learning time for my kids- this is when we do math and language arts. Usually each subject consists of some energetic active activities, some hands on partner activities, and a written activity.
10:00: Students have a special and I get prep time! This means anything from checking through papers, lesson planning, copy making, cutting things out, other prep work, or meetings. Today we had a primary (K through grade 5) meeting that lasted the whole prep time. Still, it was productive.
Next we do phonics and review things such as letter sounds and reading skills.
11:15: LUNCH! After getting my students settled, making sure everyone has a lunch, having kids missing lunches call home, a typically put out a few "fires," I get my school lunch plate and sit down with other teachers to eat. The students eat then go to recess. At the end of my lunch time I sit with a few of my kids who struggle with finishing their lunches before recess time and encourage them to finish their food. "5 more bites!"
After lunch we come in and get ready to have our short rest time. After the third time in a very small amount of time telling one student to go to the bathroom (I couldn’t help but notice “the potty dance” they were doing), said student has an accident. So while giving instructions to students to get ready for rest time independently, I search through our extra clothes bag to help my little friend. Clothes are found, crisis is averted, and life moves on.
Then, we spend the afternoon doing science or social studies, Bible, centers, and review of other skills or concepts from the day.
2:30: On Wednesdays we do chapel with the rest of elementary. We usually all sit on the steps of the courtyard and sing, pray, then listen to our director share a Bible story and message. Today, at about 2:28 it started pouring rain, so sitting in the courtyard wasn't really an option. We crammed the whole primary school into the third grade room, sang very loudly and then sat and listened to the message. The power went out and came back on exactly 5 times in this 20 minute chapel. The students didn't even flinch and no one was phased by the lights coming on and off. The power goes out so often it's barely noticed.
3:00: It's raining even harder now and we have to get up to the gate for pick up. Did I mention that our school is basically outside? There is a roof over the hallway outside the classrooms, but to get up to the pick up gate we're outside the whole walk. I pick up one particularly small student who I knew wouldn’t make it through the rain without getting soaked and hold the hand of another having a complete meltdown from the exhaustion of a day in kindergarten and now a loud and scary thunderstorm that’s over his head. I rush the rest of my short-legged friends through the rain and we all cram in the office with the rest of the school waiting for each student's name to be called for pick up. Rain day pick ups always take longer.
3:15: Normally on Wednesdays (and Mondays) I load up a large van full of kids and I drive them 20 minutes to the pool where the PE teacher and I teach swim lessons. Since its raining today swimming is canceled and half my class is still waiting to be picked up.
3:30 I head back down to my classroom where I clean up from the day and get things ready for tomorrow.
4:30 I leave school (earlier than normal because of no swim lessons!) and go to my dear friend, Kerry's house to work together on lesson plans. She lives just down the street from school.
6:00 It's still pouring rain but I have to get home! Driving a scooter in the rain is uncomfortable to say the least, especially knowing I can't take a hot shower when I get home (water's out, remember), luckily I have a small supply of warm clothes to change into as soon as I'm home.
I get home, add my dripping raincoat and clothes to the other wet hanging items from my roommates. Meanwhile, my roommates have been making mexican food all evening! Everything here is made from scratch, no ready made or easy made frozen or packaged options here! So, cooking isn't a simple task at night, this was a special meal! My four housemates and I spend the evening hanging out, eating dinner, and relaxing after everyone's long days of work.
9:00 bedtime! I can rarely stay up later than 9 or 9:30 without falling asleep. Gotta rest up for another day tomorrow!
Ok, now that I’ve typed out my day I can see that it might seem a bit “different” than a typical kindergarten teacher’s day. The thing is, no part of it was out of the ordinary. We’re in the middle of rainy season which seems to affect everything. Power, water, internet, and copy machines are never completely reliable. Kindergarteners are just kindergarteners, 5 year olds who are discovering how to do school and life.
Note: I DID get in bed at 9:00 with my computer to quickly post this, but it's now taken 25 minutes to get on the internet and post it. And since I'm still writing this, obviously it's not even posted yet so who knows how long it will take with this slow internet.... This is Africa!
