Shika

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A couple of weeks ago, I was in Dar es Salaam for a training.  Unlike other Peace Corps trainings, this was for a small, select group of Peace Corps Education Volunteers called Shika na Mikono.  “Shika na Mikono” literally means “hold/touch with hands” in Swahili, and it is a group of science-teaching Ed PCVs that is designed to go and train the new class of Education Volunteers in teaching science subjects (physics, chemistry, and biology) in an interactive and creative way.  Our initiative is to show that science in the Tanzanian classroom or laboratory is more than just theory, but should be hands-on science!  This year, there are four of us selected – one for each science subject and one A-Level person.

Biology – Ryan Early
Chemistry/Physics – me
Chemistry/Physics – Ben Savonen (aka my brother)
A-Level – Willie Blackmon (Physics)
[what a great group, right?!]

Less than a year ago, I was a bright-eyed and new volunteer myself, and although my assigned subject was supposed to be Math, I knew I wanted to also teach Physics and/or Chemistry as well.  Since my first exposure to the Shika na Mikono group during PST, I knew I wanted to be a part of it.  I always love being involved in the training and programming processes of large organizations, and if I get to combine my love of training others with science, then how much better can it get?!  [Note: Shika is basically a formal excuse for me to be incredibly nerdy, while still being educational at the same time.]

Though apparently, it can get better.  As of yesterday afternoon, I was officially selected to be one of the Welcome Hosts for the new Ed PCT class that will be arriving in Tanzania on July 5th!!!  That means that I will be one of the first (out of three) current Peace Corps Volunteers that the new PCTs, or “Baby Eds” as we call them, will meet their first night in country!  Needless to say, I am completely ecstatic to be chosen!  :D  My other cohorts will include two other SoHi (southern highland) volunteers: Jerome Gately (2011 Ed class and extending into his third year at site in Mbinga, Songea) and Ronald Meyer (2011 Environment class, who is warden of Njombe with his wife).  Anyway, not only does that mean that I will get to be the first to meet the new class, I am quite sure they will get quite sick of me, since they will be seeing me during their “Week Zero” and during their PST and most likely IST, as a representative for Shika na Mikono!  The only unfortunate part of all this just means that I will have to miss a little more school than I planned.  I’ll just have to make it up on Fridays and weekends when I get back, which won’t be a problem at all since students often come to school on Saturdays anyway.

These next couple of months are going to be jam-packed full of fun and craziness, so I’m definitely glad my school year ended last week and I was able to get all my grades turned in before I left!  So here’s the rundown of the itinerary from now until mid-July:

~ Now until June 8th – chill out and hang out in SoHi until I meet my family in Dar! [yep, that’s right, my brother, parents, and aunt are all coming to visit me for a couple weeks!]
~ June 8th – June 20th – travelling with my family until they fly out of Kilimanjaro Airport
~ June 21-ish to June 28-ish – in Korogwe, Tanga for ToT (Training of Trainers) for Shika na Mikono
~ June 28-ish to July 3rd – staying in the Dar/Tanga area and possibly going to get my SCUBA PADI certification???
~ July 4th – celebrate with whoever is in Dar and get prepared for the Baby Eds’ arrival
~ July 5th – quick prep and then the ARRIVAL OF THE BABY EDS!!!  [I’m not excited at all…]
~ July 5th – July 10th – Week Zero in Dar
~ July 11th – back to Mwatisi Secondary to teach for a couple of weeks, and then I’ll have to head back to Korogwe for the Baby Ed PST – SHIKA TIME!

I guess my trend of always keeping busy and staying involved that has been my tendency throughout my years of school has even traversed oceans and followed me here to Tanzania.  Classic Belle, eh?  I’m looking forward to it all, and I’m sure it’s going to go by so fast.  I will do my best to keep you all updated on my whereabouts, and I hope the force will be with me in the coming months.

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Jeopardy

This past week was my very last week of classes before the start of terminal exams for Term 1.  It is still unbelievable for me that I have been in Tanzania for over 11 months now, and we are just about done with the first term!!

Originally, Mwatisi’s school closing date was supposed to be the 24th of May, meaning that the last week before school closed (May 17 – 24) was supposed to be our week of terminal exams.  Of course, since this is Tanzania and things rarely ever go according to plan, there was a schedule change and the Mbeya regional competitions are scheduled for that last week and so exams were moved up to May 10 – 16.  Although that means I will be done with teaching earlier and will just be marking test papers the last week, that also means I was short one week of teaching!  Seeing as I already made the terminal exams for all of my classes, I was pressed for time in trying to make sure I covered everything that would be on the test.  It was a stressful couple of weeks, as I was making sure my students were getting the information and entering classes whenever teachers were absent or unavailable (which happens quite a lot, unfortunately).  Just in time, I was able to teach everything that would be on the terminal exams, and even had some time left over for review!

Now of course, I like to finish off the term with a bit of pizazz, so instead of JUST reviewing with my students, you guessed it – WE PLAYED JEOPARDY!  :D  I knew every single one of my students was getting more and more skittish as the days drew closer to the end of term (as was I), so why not make it a little more interesting for them by reviewing for the exams with an interactive game?

For my Form I Math and Form III and IV Chemistry students, I had five categories and three questions (100, 200, and 300 points) for each category.  For my Form III and IV Physics students, I decided to have six categories and two questions (100 and 200 points) for each category.  The math categories were Numbers, Fractions, Decimals and Percentages, Conversions, and Word Problems.  The chemistry ones were Molecules, The Mole, Chemical Equations, Acids and Bases, and Hardness of Water.  The physics categories were Archimedes’ Principle and Law of Flotation, Vectors and Relative Motion, Friction, Reflection, Refraction, and Colour.  For my larger classes (Form I), I split my students up into six teams and they were able to choose their team names, all of which were football (soccer) teams, such as Arsenal, Simba, and Chelsea.  Of course, this was to be expected because Tanzanians LOVE football, especially the premier league.  My Form III had more variety in their team names, though one of the four teams still ended up being Manchester United.  :)  I only have six students in Form IV Physics and Chemistry, so we just went about Jeopardy on an individual basis.

As an incentive, I told my students that whichever team or persons that earned the most points at the end of the game (which was when there were no more questions left) would be the winner and would receive a prize from me.  Instead of giving them a physical prize like candy or pencils, I told them that I would give the winning team extra points on their terminal exam.  They all of a sudden became very attentive to the rules and more enthusiastic than usual.  To be honest, I absolutely loved my last week because it was fun and interactive for me, but most of all, for my students.  The thing I was the most ecstatic about was their enthusiasm!  I have NEVER seen my students so excited to come to class, that when they saw me walking towards their classroom, they literally ran to their seats and rearranged themselves into their teams and sat quietly waiting for my instructions.  I was like a dream come true!  My students even tried to get me to continue the game through their other subjects, but we made a compromise that we would finish the game another day.

Each team designated a scribe and whichever team finished first had to hold up their answer and keep it up the entire time until the other groups finished.  I would award the points to whichever team was the first to have the correct answer.  If no team had the correct answer, I gave the points to Team “Madam Belle” (me).  After the points were awarded for each question, we went over the solutions.  If the students got the correct answer, I had them come up to the board to explain it to the rest of the class (in English).

Form III Chemistry Jeopardy Layout

Jeopardy scoreboard, points, and question

It took approximately two 80-minute periods for each class to finish each game, but it was entirely worth it.  I was able to review with my students the types of questions that would be on their terminal exams and it forced my students to work together in teams and try to answer the question as quickly and correctly as possible.  My counterpart came into watch one of the games and even wanted me to teach him the rules and how to play!  I had a blast, and I cannot wait to play Jeopardy with my students again for other topics next term, but with a new and improved Jeopardy board that I will be making with Velcro!  See, learning can be fun!  ;D