Where's My Ukulele?

This is a very exciting blog, as it marks the first in possibly a long line of blogs that is merely a quick story from an otherwise ordinary day. The exciting part is that this implies I am at a point where I have “ordinary days” that involve work! Yep, today I went to the early, English Mass, and then I taught for 80 minutes, and then I graded homework for 4 hours. The grading had to be done immediately, as they turn in their whole notebooks, so they needed them back to do my new homework! Anyway, it was pretty much a typical day…and then the afternoon came.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m not really seeking work at St. Laurent’s Primary School because, well, it’s a primary school. The last time I worked with upwards of 60 elementary school kids it involved my baritone ukulele (which I can’t play), an Irish folk song (which I messed up), and some awesomely absurd banter between the students and myself. Today I worked with over 60 students from “Standard 4” (the age of our 3rd graders). I was armed with no ukulele this time, and the lesson was hygiene.
I had kind of helped with this same lesson (taught by an Italian volunteer here primarily to teach monks to make cheese!) last week, but I was one of 5 helpers and really had no role other than crowd control. Today, I was the only available reinforcement. For the sake of being mildly politically correct, let’s just say that the main ideas of the (2 hour!) lesson was that you should wash your hands, boil your milk and water, cover your cough, check your…feces…and go to the doctor. Kiara (the Italian) struggles a little with English, so I got to write some pretty great pointers on the board for her, and I got to teach her the English word “poop”. It was such a wonderfully innocent and funny moment, and the kids seemed to appreciate her animation…at first…
After a while, they decided they wanted to prove many educational theorists (and probably most of you reading this) right- 8-10 year olds probably shouldn’t be asked to do the same thing for 2 hours straight, especially when they don’t really understand the language and don’t all have chairs…
She got through her lecture, but the attempt at group poster-making turned into mass chaos, including an attempt made by me to teach them the meaning of “summary” by summarizing Noah’s Ark. Yep, that confused them pretty substantially, and most went on to copy the factsheets verbatim onto the posters. Anyway, the volume level slowly rose, colored pencils were fought over, and desks were broken (I would explain, but I just saw kids on the floor laughing). It was nuts, and there were no adults in sight. Kiara was stressing, and I was loving the chaos. Every once in a while she would yell and they would settle down. Then the energy rose. Then I would bust out a good old “If you can hear my voice, clap once”, and they’d give me their attention. Then I would realize I didn’t know what they were actually supposed to be doing.
Eventually, enough had finished their work that I brought them to the front of the room (those that hadn’t walked out mid-lesson- no telling how many or where they went). I thought hard about what I could do. I quickly realized that the very experience that had vaguely prepared me for this was the experience I would draw from. So, I used what I learned from Breakthrough Saint Paul. Literally, I taught the kids our Breakthrough Spirit Check. This is simply a pattern of clapping and leg-slapping, but it provided great practice for their English numbers, distraction, and probably an equal amount of noise. After a good deal of time, they had it, and they were even learning to yell, “Breakthrough!” at the end instead of “Heyyyyyy!” I have to say it warmed my heart and, luckily enough, brought a little order to the madness.
Being naïve, I thought the job was done once Kiara yelled, “Okay! Lesson’s over! You can go play!” Our walk back to the monastery would be about 5 minutes at the most…or would it?! Not only did our new students follow us and stop us constantly as we tried to walk, but so did hordes of other students that had been playing. We were mobbed and had no choice but to embrace it. They wanted to touch our skin. They wanted to ask if I knew soccer players (It turns out answering, “Yes” is the easiest option”. They wanted to teach us Kiswahili. They wanted to learn English. Most importantly, they wanted me to dance like Michael Jackson with them!
A surreal 45 minutes later, we made it back for a couple of Cokes and some long, deep breaths. Just imagine the chaos I could have helped foster had I actually known what was going on….Oh yeah, and don’t forget to wash your hands WHEN?... (Correct answer: before you eat and after you use the toilet! If you switch the before and after like the students, then you aren’t doing a lot of good).