After last week's both physically and emotionally draining first day of teaching I would never have thought our first day teaching in Arusha would have ended with us dancing to raggae together in the hotel park. I think we decided on a Lucky Dube song for freeze dance as our warm up activity.:) trying to bring some local music into our classroom and also a song that both ChristiNs and Muslims can appreciate.
We totally came together as a high performing teaching team who understood each others strengths and could improvise with only a few words between us. We also learned from our last session and opened up with introductions that were way more fun and showed our "human side". Terry in particular shined today as he shared his blue and yellow Lakers socks (I'm also a fan growing up in SoCal) and then his sick soccer moves bouncing a tennis ball on his knees and then ending with a head bump. He had the group howling with laughter. The teachers clearly felt comfortable with us by end of Day 1 which will make it so much easier for them to ask questions as the content gets more difficult throughout the week.
While this week we are in modern hotel conference room facilities, I am reminded that the teachers have come from remote villages like Motinko that we were at last week. A couple teachers drove 9 hoods on a bus to come this week. These are not luxury air-conditioned with bathrooms on board buses we are accustomed to either. Imagine crowded, hot and uncomfortable. It speaks to their commitment for continuous learning.
We adjusted our course content to the lowest common denominator of levels and then learned we had some real Microsoft tool experts in our class and quickly came up with some more challenging activities. A few of the students had been to one or both of the previous team4tech sessions in Tanzania over the last 2 years and it was impressive to see how much their skills grew from a basic learner to expert and they are still eager to push their learning and grow further. That is our hope for all the teachers we have worked with and brought me optimism knowing how far they can come in such a short period. Our beginner learners leveraged the experts for some peer to peer coaching. Great example of collaboration, one of our four 21st century skills. :)
Have I mentioned how much we eat here? Geez...I have never been so well fed and so full in a long time! Breakfast, two tea breaks with substantial food, lunch and dinner! Also every meal comes with rice and some sort of vegetables/sauce combo. They have these meat or veggie samosa's that are incredible too! If I knew they weren't fried, I would eat 5 in one sitting! I will be rolling myself off the plane next weekend.
Lesson planning was short tonight and software uploads a breeze compared to last week where all the pc's had a Trojan virus we had to deal with. Thank goodness for Charles and Joel, our World Vision IT support. They make troubleshooting any problem look simple without any stress at all.
Listening to some 80's flashbacks and raggae music, dancing together and playing cards in the hotel garden was the perfect end to Day 1 in Arusha.
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