Today at West Haven it was much of the same thing. I assisted with bathing and feeding. I again went to the school to help out and was actually able to do much more today. Today the teacher allowed me to choose two books from their very slim library. The library is just one shelf in the classroom that has a variety of random books. I was able to read Chocolatina and a book about rhyming dust bunnies.
The children loved Chocolatina! It was just a silly book about a girl who eats chocolate so much that she becomes it. If you have ever read Pinkalicious, it is basically the same idea! I asked a few questions as we read the book and after we finished and a few of the kids could answer the questions. We then read the book about the rhyming dust bunnies but it was a big flop! I had asked the teacher beforehand if the children understood rhyming and she assured me that they did, however it was very apparent as we were reading and asking questions that they did not! They did like the underlying story even if they didn't get the rhyming portion of the book, so I guess that that was good :)
Before I read the teacher went over the basic things again such as the months of the year and the days of the week. They try to incorporate Spanish into the teaching so today the teacher tried to do the days of the week in Spanish. Unfortunately she had no clue how to pronounce them...luckily I had a little bit more of an idea and was able to help her :)
Derrick, I posted a picture of him in an earlier post, sat with me the whole class. He is a ball of energy! He enjoyed playing with my hair and watching me draw him pictures.
After the morning routine and me reading the stories the teacher decided that the kids needed a break. So, what better way to entertain kids than a movie. Movies are great, but I was disappointed that the children sat and watched a movie that was not educational while they could have been learning. These children only get about 2 hours of instruction time and by the time all the children are in the classroom and calmed down it is already down to about 90 minutes. She played the movie for about 30 minutes, so that left the children with only 1 hour of instruction. These children would benefit from more instruction.
At one point the teacher mentioned that she played the movie because the children all have a very short attention span. I wanted to tell her that that just means that she needs to have more activities and do new things everyday! It is hard for me to see how great the differences are between the care given to these children and the care that these children would be given in the US. It makes me wonder what their "normal" schools are like. I wonder if those schools challenge the children enough? I wonder how the average Jamaican school would compare to the average American school. Lots of things to think about!
I am looking forward to seeing the children again tomorrow, a couple of them have already told me that they are going to miss me when I leave on Friday :(
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