cow, pig, train

So I heard before I came here, and may have told some of you, that the educational standards/level of students in Malawi were the same as the USA. Turns out that wasn't exactly accurate, which makes a little more sense. Of course the kids in Malawi are just as smart as the kids in America, but they aren't any smarter either. Considering the typical kid here went to a primary school where there are 120 kids in a class, it's not shocking to learn that most of them are very far behind in their math skills, (and from what I've heard other subjects as well). Never mind having kids who don't know their times tables, I have kids who don't understand the concept of multiplication!!

I dealt with many low level students in NYC, but nothing like this. Their low math skills are of course compounded by the fact that they have a rather weak grasp of the English language.

For example, the following happened today when I tried to introduce my kids to the concept of sets:

On the board: cow, pig, rhino, lion, train
Me: Which one of these things does not belong?
one student raises hand: cow!

It wasn't until I taught the same lesson to a later class that I realized nobody understood the word train!!
I'm learning from this and trying to ask kids whether they know certain words before moving on with my lessons.

I'm determined to raise the level of all these kids, and will be adding a mandatory class during lunch time in coming weeks(don't worry, they'll still have 40 min to eat). This will allow me to break them down into smaller sizes (form 2 is still over 50 kids) for atleast 1 period a week.

Students are only required to get above a 40% on national exams, but I'm certainly expecting to get my students well above that. As we've all heard a thousand times, high expectations are the first step to a successful school, so that's what we're hoping to do at Gracious.