Back to School

Lumelang hape (doo-MEH-la-ng HA-peh)! Hello again! These past couple weeks were the first weeks of school here. It's exciting to finally be teaching, which is what we've been training for. Speaking of training, the workshop a couple weekends ago went very well. We learned a lot, and not just about co-teaching. We were introduced to two different organizations, African Library Project (ALP) and SolarSPELL. We now have a lot of resources to incorporate in our teaching, and I'm happy to be able to share about these with y'all!

ALP

African Library Project is an organization that helps bring books to schools in Africa. It was actually started in Lesotho! A Returned Peace Corps Volunteer from Lesotho now works with them and was one of the presenters at our workshop. There are book drives that happen primarily in the U.S. and Canada, and are shipped to schools in 13 different African countries. Schools apply to get books, and agree to use the books for the benefit of all students and teachers at their school. I loved learning about ALP, because there is a great need for books in schools here. My co-teacher, Mohapi, and I are excited to be able to apply for books, and to organize our library in the future. (africanlibraryproject.org)

Pictured above is my counterpart, Mohapi! This photo was from the workshop. We learned we work well together during the workshop, and have continued to improve our relationship during these past two weeks of school.

SolarSPELL

The other organization we learned about is SolarSPELL. A team from Arizona State University came out to teach us about it. Two of the members that came are Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, one from Lesotho! SolarSPELL is a digital library that anyone can access for free when connected. It has its own WiFi, which only connects to the SolarSPELL library (not the internet). There are TONS of resources in the library, for every subject - English, math, science, history art, music...Videos, PDFs, books in English and Sesotho, online simulations, and more. What's also cool is that this library we got is specific for education in Lesotho. SolarSPELL has reached countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Lesotho is the 11th country to partner with them! 25 people can be connected at one time, which means even for the biggest schools like mine (which has 22 teachers including me), all the teachers can connect at once! The resources can also be downloaded, so we don't have to be connected to access our favorites. The team trained us on how to use it, and we all took our SolarSPELL devices back to our schools to train the other teachers. Teachers at my school are very much looking forward to using the digital library, and I've heard from other volunteers that teachers at their schools are very excited too. We are all so grateful to have the opportunity to use these resources, and I can't wait to see the positive impact it has for or students. (solarspell.org)

The pictures on the left and middle are the solar spell device, and the picture on the right is us using the solar panels for the first time to charge!

School

Our first couple weeks of school have been very eventful. Mondays and Fridays start with morning assembly, which at my school means prayers (we're a Catholic school), singing, announcements, Bible interpretation, and a marching song to end and go to class. My school sings "We are Walking in the Light of God" as one of the marching songs, partly in English and partly in Sesotho. In my training village, the students sang a different marching song all in English- it depends on the school. I've heard a few different ones here so far, though the others have been in Sesotho. On the first day after assembly, the grades gathered in front of the classrooms and were sorted into their classes. This year for fourth grade, there are three classes, 4A, 4B, and 4C. They are sorted by learning level, with 4A being the learners who are ahead and 4C being the class with learners who need extra support. Mohapi and I teach 4C, and we have about 50 students. I'm the 22nd teacher at the school, so the classes are all big because we have about 1,020 students total! It's definitely challenging teaching so many at once, but we're doing our best. Above to the left and below to the right are pictures from our classroom.

It's more of an adjustment for me than for Mohapi and the students, since they're used to the class size, but she's definitely happy to not have more than 50! Out of the volunteers, I teach at one of the biggest schools. The smallest school has about 70 students total, and the volunteer there is the 4th teacher. Their challenges are a bit different - teachers often teach multiple grade levels at once. So it's been interesting to hear about everyone's schools and seeing the differences. I definitely look forward to visiting the other classes and grade levels at my school, especially as I've been asked to teach English classes to them too.

Pictured above is my counterpart and I with a couple other teachers! On the far left is Mme Martha, who is another 4th grade teacher. On the far right is Mme Mapakiso, a 1st grade teacher.

For Fun

Just wanted to share a couple interesting things I've seen the past couple weeks. The photo on the left of the donkey next to the front door is from a really hot afternoon. It's now summer here, and the past couple weeks have been pretty hot-reaching 90 degrees in the afternoon. The donkey found a good patch of shade to escape the sun!

There was also another calf born! I shared in a post from site visit in November about a new calf, and now we have another one. He is super cute of course, and shaky when walking but still amazing how much he could move around on his own just hours after being born.

Hope everyone is doing well! Starting school has been exciting, challenging, tiring, rewarding, and everything in between. I look forward to implementing more changes to work with teachers other than my counterpart and hopefully bring books from ALP to our school. Until next time!