Week Six - Professional/Cultural

15/03/12

As I reflect upon the past few weeks, it’s hard to believe that I am completing my last week of teaching placement in City Parents Primary School.  I have to admit that I have loved teaching in this school, despite my initial hesitance.  It took time to adjust to the different attitudes which prevail in the Ugandan education system.  I had to become comfortable with the larger class sizes and the different teaching approaches employed in Ugandan schools.  As I engaged with Ugandan culture each day, I continually learned more about the complex differences between Africa and Europe.  It was this  ongoing learning experience which  I enjoyed the most during my time teaching in City Parents Primary School.  These experiences included eating the traditional African cuisine of posso and matoki for lunch (although I can’t say I’m going to miss these foods too much) or viewing a traditional African tribal dance during the school assembly; a truly exciting and energetic spectacle.

Trying to dance in assembly

Traditional african tribal dance

 I feel that over the past few weeks I have gained a vast insight into the teaching culture of Africa which at times I have found to be very frustrating;  There is a definite lack of active learning with a constant emphasis on the presentation of work rather than concept appreciation.  While I understand from my experiences during this placement that teaching interactive lessons with such large numbers is difficult, I feel that Ashleigh and I have shown the teachers how their lessons can be more creative and engaging.  Using techniques which we learned at Stranmillis, we were able to captivate the children's imagination and immerse them into a learning experience focused on concept appreciation rather than rote learning.  I am confident that this placement has helped to develop my teaching competency, specifically  focused upon appreciating  “the impact of the cultural differences on the learning process.” (GTCNI)  By having the opportunity to fully embrace teaching in this culture I now feel that I have become more sensitive to different cultures and religions which will help me to fully welcome and adopt cultural diversity in my future classroom.  I recognise that cultural differences should not separate us from each other but rather “cultural diversity brings a collective strength that can benefit all of humanity.”(Sliverstein, 1983)

P3N's classroom reading book

Teaching Finn McCool

We decided to share our Irish culture this week with the teachers and pupils in Uganda.  This included telling the traditional Irish myth of Finn McCool which the children loved, singing some Irish songs and having a question time in which the children asked many interesting questions about what it was like to live in Ireland.  In order to share our culture with some of the staff, Ashleigh and I decided to invest our free time baking for the other staff members.  We chose to make jam and coconut scones for the staff which went down a treat with everyone.  Multiple cross-cultural experiences such as these over the past six weeks have helped us to break the barriers presented by some Ugandans towards Mzungus.  In our first few weeks a child pointed out that I was on the front cover of their class reading book which was entitled ‘Mzungu’.  When I read a few pages of the picture book I discovered that white people were described as ghost like figures which sound like chattering monkeys.  I hope that over the past six weeks we have shown these children that even though we look different we are in fact all the same and that “it doesn’t matter if you're black or white.”(Jackson,M)

Telling the story of Finn McCool

A typical African lunch (some beef rice and pumpkin)

So we decided to do some baking...

We made the teachers some jam and coconut scones

Overall I have truly enjoyed my time at City Parents School and I will miss the many faces which I have grown so fond of over the past six weeks.  However we have not said goodbye yet as the school are preparing a farewell assembly for us on the 13^th April which I am looking forward to immensely.  

My class  on the last day of school

References

General Teaching Council for Northern Ireland, (2007), GTCNI: Teaching: The reflective Profession, Teaching Council for Northern Ireland.

Jackson, M (1991), Black or White, Epic records.