End of the first week of term

It never ceases to amaze me how differently the same class can go with a different group of students! Our Monday and Tuesday group are a relatively mixed bunch, some noisy, some quiet, some enthusiastic, some thoughtful; and in some ways the same can be said of the Thursday and Friday group, but the personalities of the groups themselves are utterly different! The first is relatively easy to teach, they ask questions, but are satisfied with relatively simple and straightforward explanations, they listen attentively most of the time; they take notes; they are polite. I could wish that they would be more discriminating about what they write down, most of them try to transcribe every word on every slide, but at least they are trying to keep a record of whatever it is we are trying to encourage them to learn. However, when it comes to creative ideas they can drive me to drink, or even to despair! On Monday I read them 'Nanda's Surprise' and at the end I asked them what activities they could think of that might use the ideas in the story to teach pre-school children. I was met by such a wall of blank faces that I gave them a couple of ideas and then said I would ask them again before lunch, to give them time to think about it. When we returned to the subject three hours later things were not that much better. David and I managed to drag a few ideas out of them but it was like drawing the proverbial teeth. If someone else says 'We could use it to teach colours', again when presented with such a rich resource, I think I shall have to retire defeated! We repeated the experience with the second group yesterday and as soon as I had asked the question ideas were being offered from all corners of the room: tasting, comparing, cutting, preparing fruits; finding out more about the animals in the story, exploring the feelings of the characters in the story; making up dramas, making baskets, having races over obstacle courses while balancing the baskets on their heads, talking about favourite fruits, looking at the adjectives used in the book to describe the fruits, the suggestions just kept on coming and in the end we finished the session before the class ran out of ideas.

On the other hand, on Tuesday and this morning we had a couple of speakers from Chilomoni Health Centre talking about child health issues. Both groups had asked for more speakers as part of the 'feedback on the course so far' sessions. They are keen to hear from specialists and we are trying to get speakers who work in the local area so that we can begin to build relationships with other professionals working with children who will share the client group of the families who live around the Children's Centre. The North building will not be finished as soon as the South, Day Care building, but we hope that both will be functioning properly by Christmas and some of the local professionals may well end up working in offices within the Children's Centre. The speakers presented in a mixture of English and Chichewa. This was their choice. They said that it was easier to explain some aspects in English, and others in Chichewa. The first group received the lecture fairly attentively and asked a few questions. The second was noisy to the point of being rude and asked questions that occasionally seemed to me to be more designed to catch the speakers out than offered in a spirit of enquiry. I felt quite cross with them.