Week 6 in Namibia-School Based Training

(For some reason I can’t get captions on the other photos. Photo 2 There are roughly 1450 learners at this school, grades 0-10. There are 8 other buildings similar to what you see here. Photos 3&4 are “love” letters from my learners. We all get them. We are like celebrities on campus

I have two interesting things to share that happened at school this week. After completing the 5th grade lesson with some time to spare, I was reviewing long division with my learners and decided to “check it” using multiplication. When I completed the multiplication and added the remainder and the result was the same as what we had been dividing, the class thought it was like magic. They said, “Do another, do it again” and we did until the class was over. It was the first time they saw how to do this.

In another class, I let them ask some questions about me. They already knew that I had five children and 8 grandchildren. One boy asked if I beat my children. I said my children are grown and bigger than me now, but no, I did not beat them. He kind of laughed, so did others, and some shook their heads – kind of like they were scoffing at me. “But”, I said, “I did punish them.” I would have said “consequences” or “discipline” but “punish” was the only word I was certain they understood. He asked what I did. I said I made them go to their room, I took away privileges like TV, phone, friends. I made them do extra chores and rarely, if they were especially bad, I sent them to bed with no dinner. There was a collective gasp, nodding of heads, and they understood I was not weak.

All for now, with all my love