Most Stressful day…

The day has started to become more hectic and stressful.. Lesson plans, classroom management skills, are all on a row. But I had never become such tired as I felt today during these days at school. Grade six students, who used to shout and linger on classes all the time, were today now settled down and I chose two class captains to help me to maintain the discipline at class and I think this would be helpful in coming days. Then, today I had to take grade 3 students in the absence of Manjila miss who used to take that class before and for the first time I was dealing with the students of those age and it became the most problematic period for me as nobody was listening what I was telling and were fighting with each other. Though later on I was able to settle them down saying them some stories, I had already lost my energy. This made me remember my mother as she is a primary level teacher and has to manage these things every day. Now I am realizing how bold she is…

Then, Alissa Thomson, from teach for all came to observe my class at grade 8. Her comments really made me happy and gave me a hope. 

Then I thoroughly went to grade 7 and grade 9. All went good. But during those times, really I had lost all my energies. Then I was so eager to rush my home and take rest but I think today God was taking my test and I had to wait so long for micro from Chapagaun To Lagankhel and even from Lagankhel I could not find micro on time. But thank God that, tomorrow is a holiday…….

Reflecting the Week….

The day was going as usual…teaching and learning process was going on… Today Ashok, who is making our photo story, was along with us. He was all around us observing and making us reflecting our first week…how was our overall experience and so on. I have now started becoming busy on checking the answer sheets of students. The students have now started being close to me and started to express their feelings with me and I am happy some of them even shared their personal feelings and problems with me. But I am sad to find out that some of the teachers even from the co-operative school, who are considered to be more determined for children’s future are rude to them and are careless. One of the students came towards me and asked me,” Bhawana miss, how much are you taking salary to teach us from our school?” I was very surprised to hear that question and answered,”No, I am not taking any salary from your school.” Then the student smiled and said, “Yes, I knew that you were not taking salary from our school, the teacher lied us by telling that for you TFN fellow our school has to pay more salaries which is a burden that’s why we have increased the school fees.” This answer made me more surprised. After all why is this happening? I had never expected it to happen in Jyotidaya. This made me very sad. During these days I am engaging myself in rapport building and making my students engage in classroom activities.

Meeting with guardians…

Today, I had school leave because of local Jatra at Chapagaun. So I did not have to go to school but as some of my students were playing music (Dhime Baja) at the jatra and as I am new to these jatras, they wanted me to come and see the Jatra. So, I went Chapagaun and met my students. They were all excited to see me there. They took me to their homes and I got the chance to meet their guardians and parents.

But I felt some difficulty to talk with them as I am not on to Newari language and most of the guardians only used newari language to communicate. The students helped me to understand the language. This made me very happy. I spent my day with them. We talked about the importance of Jatras, their family background, their motive of studying and so on. I was enjoying a lot.

While talking with the family members, I found out that some of the students were of low economic background and some were being raised by single parent and they felt ashamed of that and would not like to share the problems. Similarly some were facing the problem from their step parents as well. Though, today I did not go to school, my day was fruitful as I got to know more about my students beyond their classroom and I am hopeful that I will be able to take them where they deserve to be the best. 

Celebrating Earth Day…..

As, it was an earth day, we celebrated the earth day in our classrooms too. As we got some art and craft materials for our school from Elizabeth’s friend, who had visited our school last year, we thought to utilize it. So we gave it to students. So our class was very artistic today. We did different things in different classes. Some of them did paper art; some did rock painting and many more. All were busy with their paintings and they seemed very happy. Seeing them happy, I was happy too….

I took all of my classes for the first time..........

The second day of the school was fun. Today I got the opportunity to take all my classes as our school had a new schedule. I started with grade 6 students where one of my students, Nimesh had his birthday so we celebrated his birthday, introduced with each other then played a birthday game so that we may know the birth dates of other students too and make a birthday chart of our class. 

Then, I had another class on grade 8, where I made them play one introduction game, Guess who? where they had to guess their partners whose name is pasted on their back, find them out and know about their partner and introduce him/her to the teacher. At grade 7, I did paper toss introduction game which was a great fun for students as well as for me too. I got to know about their nature from this game and at grade 9 as I had already done introduction, I talked with them about my plans and my desires for them and how are we going to learn this year. So, I am on my way of rapport building with my students....
While I was on my class, some of my friends (Rajan, Ravi,Pusparaj, Manoj and Narayan) were on their journey to their placement. So today is one of the important day for all of us Teach For Nepal members.