Finally Teaching

I don't feel like I have done a great deal the last few days although today was definitely busy.

Tuesday was the Nepalese Federal Election and due to major security concerns throughout the country it was declared a public holiday. No cars, buses, taxis or motorbikes were allowed to be on the streets and for this reason, we were pretty much not able to leave the immediate vicinity of our hotel. You couldn't even purchase alcohol anywhere until after the polling booths closed at 5pm. This didn't bother anyone as we all felt like we needed a day to just unwind and chill out. The garden in our hotel was our place of refuge from the outside world again. 

Wednesday was declared an official public holiday so we went to the Mitrataa Hostel for what would be our final official visit there. We completed our Nepali cuisine Master Chef competition and the food was great. It is so weird (but very fun) to eat everything including rice and currys with your hands. We will go back to the hostel before we leave Nepal but it will be in our own time. It will be hard to say goodbye to all the kids there as we have all developed a strong bond with most of them. 

Today was our first day of doing what we actually came here to do and what the strikes prevented us from doing: Teaching. Riviera International Academy was all ready for us when we got there this morning (one kid was so excited that he threw-up in the front row at assembly; atleast that's what we like to believe). The students, from Kindergarten to Year 10 all looked so smart in their school uniforms and were all excited to be back after ten days of strikes. The school assembly kicked off the day where they all sang their school song, national anthem and then we all had a turn of introducing ourselves to the school. While at the school I am teaching year 1 and 2 maths; my Associate Teacher is Kanchan Shrestha and she is incredible. She is only 19 years old, studying science at university full time, teaching full time and tutoring 9 children every afternoon; she has no teaching qualifications and is just so excited to have me working with her. I think she expects to learn a lot from me which places huge expectations on my shoulders (although I am very flattered that she thinks that I know a lot). I do have more teacher education than she does but she has had a lot more professional experience than I have. At the end of today she was asking me what I thought of her teaching, if there was good things or bad things, what was different and what was the same. I told her that there was nothing negative in what I had seen, only different things; I said that I like to look at the positive side of everything she has done and learn from it. 

The school lining up for assembly

In Class 1, they are learning Division; it was interesting to see how Kanchan taught, she has fantastic rapport with the students which is most likely helped by her helpful and bubbly personality. Everything is rote learning and is not student centred like I am used to; the learning is also not scaffolded which I initially struggled with. This in no way reflects upon Kanchan's teaching abilities but instead reflects how in Nepal they are always teaching for a test. I couldn't see this as a negative but only different to what I know. The students do not seem to struggle as much as what I thought and considering they are learning in English (which is their second, third or fourth language) they are doing very well indeed. 

Class 1 learning division

Kanchan and I discussed how I would teach the same subjects in Australian schools and she was so intrigued by the methods we would use. She said she would love to try different teaching methods but due to the strict testing nature of their education system it was hard to veer away from the repetitive, fast paced rote teaching and learning style. I would say that my first teaching day at Riviera was a success. Kanchan pretty much threw me straight in to teaching which I think was fantastic. The children were all so excited to have someone from another country come teach them and they were even more excited that I was a man (most of the teachers are women; much like Australian schools); I was even called ma'am a few times. 

Kanchan Shrestha teaching Class 1

I am really excited tomorrow; I teach in the morning and then in the afternoon our group is travelling outside of Kathmandu for the first time to a place called Nagarkot. Nagarkot is apparently the only place where you can see both the sunrise and sunset over the himalayas so we will spend the night there before visiting the village of Panauti (Bec from Mitrataa's home) on the way back to the city. On that note I will finish up. I am certain to have a lot to report on with my next blog.