Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Melvin Day Three

I woke up this morning at 6.55am in Christchurch, which is in the south island of New Zealand, at my partner teacher, Helen Chileshe's house. I was offered breakfast of coffee and toast. We had breakfast together with Helen's husband, Evans, and her 2 sons Luamba and Temwa. They told me that when I get home after school, I should give them my clothes to wash.

We got into the vehicle to go to school - Christ's College. When we reached the school, I observed an English class with Year 9s with Sharn, in which they were learning about the formation of a story using pictures. There was another teacher in the class named Paul, who was showing the students how to use the computer as their story. I thought the flow of the story in picture form was very nice.

Next, I went to the chapel where boys were singing (this is an all boys school). There were many, many boys in the chapel learning new songs from the chaplain. They used 2 different hymn books.

Then as we went out of the chapel, Dirk took me to his mathematics class to tell the students about Zambia and in particular, Mukupi School and Mumbwa. In this class, he introduced me to his students and asked me to talk to the students. They had many questions, like 'how do we manage to teach a lot of students in only 4 classrooms?', or 'do you have a lot of educational resources at your school?' and many more questions. I felt good talking to these students because it's my first time to stand in front of so many white faces and talk, that they wanted to know about Zambia.

From there I went again the Sharn's class, this time a senior one, and back again to Dirk's class after that.

In my lifetime, I have never seen such a school as Christ's College. It is one of the oldest and most expensive schools in NZ. Buildings are very attractive, the teachers are very responsible for their subject and class areas, and are on time and professional. The relationship between teachers, students and teacher to student is very respectful and they do many activities together, including taking lunch breaks and playing sports.

I would like to take this experience of how the lessons are being conducted and the good staff relationships back to Mukupi and to Mumbwa.

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