Julian's challenging first days in the classroom

Now it’s getting real. We finished up orientation with a scenic trip to Cape Point. Taylor, Tom, Logan and I found a trail that happened to lead to the end of the continent. It was kind of cool. The same day we went to Boulder Beach and watched the penguins. As if that day wasn’t cool enough we went to an annual Minstrel Carnival where we mingled with the locals and learned that Capetonians were born with the ability to dance. There were three year olds next to us who had more flow than I will ever have.

After our two week vacation we finally began internships. Yesterday was my first day at Thondokhulu High School. It was relatively easy in the sense that Taylor and I shadowed Ms. Mtiya for the first day. But things picked up quickly today. For the first two periods we helped the 12^th grade learners with a Cold War exercise. Then the third period alarm (I say alarm because the bell sounds like an air raid warning) rang and nobody left. For some reason the other teacher never came to take the class over and Ms. Mtiya left so Taylor and I sort of sat there with nothing to do for the kids. After a few more classes Taylor and I went to McDonalds where I got my Big Mac for the second day in a row. I needed that burger badly.

This is where it gets heavy. We got back to the school and Ms. Mtiya was casually talking to us about how much she hated the last period of the day because the kids don’t concentrate. She then informed us that she would be leaving for a meeting during the last two periods of the day and that Taylor and I would be in charge of the class. We had exactly eight minutes to read up on Tsar Nicholas II and the Russian Revolution and find the answers to the questions she was going to give the students. This wasn’t looking good, but it got worse. When we got to the classroom Taylor and I were given the worksheets to give to the 45 students. The worksheets contained two irrelevant paragraphs, a political cartoon and 9 questions. Unfortunately the questions required information from the book that none of the students had and so we were forced to make a lesson plan up on the spot… on a topic we just read about in a textbook that is awfully vague. We decided to teach one question at a time and teach the content the best we could. Nothing was really working in our favor but we made it through and it seemed like the kids understood as much as we did about Tsar Nicholas II. Which isn’t much.