Chai Tea Sunday

by Heather A. Clark

  The challenges of so many kids in one classroom was intimidating, particularly given the broad age range, but my mind hadn’t stopped racing with ideas of ways to teach them since the day before.

  “I’ll do it!” I exclaimed. I was surprised to hear my voice, and my confident tone surprised me even more.

  “Well . . . good. There, it’s settled. Now, go and get the dirty brats and start teaching them. Out of my sight already!” Jebet picked up her stick and turned, leaving the kitchen as quickly as she could.

  “You be good teacher. Hasina tell me that she like you,” Johanna said as she scratched at her chin. Her left hand rested on her lower abdomen, which she rubbed lightly as if her stomach was aching. I wondered if Johanna was hungry.

  “I guess I should get the kids and tell them what’s going on,” I responded timidly. Out of nowhere, I became incredibly nervous. My stomach curled in knots and I suddenly wondered if I had spoken too quickly. I didn’t even speak the language the majority of them knew best. And I certainly had no clue how to effectively teach thirty-five children who ranged from age four to fourteen.

  “You be good,” Johanna said again, as though she was reading my thoughts.

  I smiled and took a deep breath before leaving for the classroom, where I grabbed the little bell from the desk to call the kids to class. Within moments, all thirty-five of them were mashed back together and sitting in the exact seats that they had sat in the day before.

  “Hujambo,” I started, clearing my throat. I inhaled the musty air of the classroom and watched as wide eyes waited for me to continue. Several of the students blinked repeatedly, their eyes looking almost mechanical. “Would any of you who speak English like to help me out? I have an announcement to make and I would like for everyone to understand it.”

  No one moved an inch. No one put up their hands or even offered to help. All thirty-five children sat staring at me.

  “Okay, I need you to listen then, and understand as best as you can. Hasina won’t be here today, but I will be teaching you. I would really like for one of you to translate for me. It would really help me out.”

  The girl who had translated Hasina’s lessons for me the day before timidly raised her hand, looking sheepish and afraid. I smiled in relief, grateful to have a volunteer, and motioned for the girl to join me at the front of the class.

  “Thank you for volunteering,” I said to her quietly. “What is your name?”

  “It is Esther. And I am happy to help you.”

  I spoke slowly, so that Esther had time to translate my English into Swahili. For the most part she did really well, although I had to give her a few synonyms for the English words she didn’t recognize.

  “Mwalimu Hasina won’t be with us for the next little while. She and the other teachers in Kenya are working together to figure out solutions for some issues that have come up.” I paused, letting Esther catch up. As the little girl spoke to the class in Swahili, the students looked sad — and a bit scared to learn their teacher would no longer be with them. “Until Hasina returns, I will be your teacher. I am excited to be here and I look forward to teaching you.”

  The scared faces softened. Slightly.

  “We will need to figure some things out together,” I said honestly. “The truth is that I wasn’t prepared to be your only teacher today. I’m going to need to find out what supplies we have and what types of things we will be learning about over the next little while.”

  A young boy about seven sitting in the third row raised his hand timidly. “Yes?” I asked him.

  “Our supplies that we have are in Miss Hasina’s desk. They are all in her drawers,” the little boy said, pointing to the desk.

  “Thank you. What is your name?”

  “John. My name is John.” The little boy smiled and wiped his running nose on his sleeve.

  “It’s nice to meet you, John. And thank you for pointing me in the right direction.” I walked to the desk and opened the drawers. Inside, I found a thick stack of blank papers, and some extra pencils and erasers.

  I thumbed through the drawer, stalling for time. I had no idea where to start.

  Given that I had just found out that I would be on my own, I hadn’t had time to properly plan or come up with fleshed-out ideas. While it was true that my mind had been racing with teaching tactics since the day before, my inspiration consisted only of spiralling ideas. No concrete plans of attack.

  I decided to start with the basics.

  “There are many of you, and only one of me, so I hope that you will be patient with me as I learn your names,” I started, taking the pipe cleaners, markers and construction paper out of my backpack. Esther continued to translate. “Let’s begin with making name tags for each of us to wear. I will show you how to make one, and then you can all make your own.”

  I took a piece of yellow construction paper and cut out a large rectangular shape. I used a red marker to write “Mwalimu Nicky” in big, bold letters. To decorate it, I drew a few flowers with some of the other markers. Then, a few stickers.

  Using one of the pencils, I poked a hole in the top centre of my name tag. I pushed a piece of blue pipe cleaner through it, threading it through one of my button holes. I secured the two ends tightly together to ensure my name tag wouldn’t come off.

  “There!” I said, showing my name tag to the students proudly. I started passing out the supplies I had used and encouraged the kids to make their own version of my name tag. “Now, it’s your turn. Please be as creative as you like — it can be a rectangle like mine, or a heart or a star or a circle. And you can decorate it in whatever way you choose. The only thing I ask is that you write your name in big letters so that I can see it. I’m going to try to learn all of your names as quickly as possible.”

  The kids eagerly took the supplies and stared at the stickers in awe. Although I couldn’t be certain, I suspected that some of them had never seen stickers before — particularly the ones that had googly eyes, which instantly became the number one pick among the group.

  Many of the older kids jumped in right away, taking brightly coloured construction paper and a few markers and stickers back to their seats. Others took longer to choose their materials.

  “Mwalimu Nicky? Can I use two colours of the long, fuzzy things?” one of the girls asked, referring to the pipe cleaners. I peered over her shoulder and saw that she had spelled out SADIKI on her name tag.

  “Yes, of course, Sadiki. You may do whatever you would like with your name tag. Be as creative as possible so that yours is completely different from everyone else’s.”

  I watched Sadiki light up as she chose yellow and orange pipe cleaners to create the hook for her name tag. Then, as though she was replaying my creative nudging over again in her mind, she twisted the top of the two-colour hook around and around until she had created a spiral. Looking pleased with herself, she fastened her completed name tag to the top button on her uniform.

  As the rest of the children finished up their name tags, I racked my brain, trying to think of the best way to teach this particular classroom. I scoured my memory for concepts we had learned in teachers’ college, or suggestions from other teachers that I had worked with.

  But everything I knew of was specific to a particular age. Nothing in the curriculum I had used leveraged teaching methods for such a broad age range of kids. Multi-age methods simply didn’t exist, because our classrooms didn’t have a four-year-old sitting next to a fourteen-year-old.

  And then it dawned on me. While the method of teaching wasn’t created with a ten-year age span in mind, I remembered that Montessori schools purposely educate children in a multi-age group. The belief was that a mixed age of children would create an environment where students would spontaneously learn from one another. While the obvious insight is that older children would share their knowledge with younger ones, it made sense to me that the o
lder children would also be learning, particularly given that teaching reinforces previously learned concepts. As I had quickly learned in my own career, a teacher needs to fully and completely understand the lesson before being able to teach it. For that teacher — whether a certified post-grad or a nine-year-old mentor — the full comprehension of the lesson they are teaching ultimately serves as an aid in the complete mastery of the concept.

  With that thought, my own first lesson was learned: I needed to creatively leverage the more obscure ideas and methods I had heard about along my own learning path. Teaching these children couldn’t be based on my previous years’ experience in education. It simply wouldn’t work.

  I told the children they could go outside for an early break, and quickly got to work, setting up different learning stations throughout the classroom. I wanted each student to be able to choose whatever activity interested them.

  I chewed a couple of pieces of gum that I found in the pocket of my backpack and, using it as sticky tack, set up an art station by creating “easels” along one wall, made from the blank paper.

  I used different pages within the various subject textbooks to create information centres that students could individually choose to read about.

  I created a craft corner with the leftover supplies I had brought with me from home, the brightly coloured pipe cleaners and markers calling out to the craftier students.

  I constructed a shapes station by cutting out a triangle, circle, square, parallelogram, pentagon and hexagon, and labelled each with thick black marker.

  I set up an alphabet-printing area where I wrote out each letter three times using dots that could be traced, and then left the rest of the space blank for the children to write out their own letters.

  I slipped out of the classroom to ask Johanna if I could borrow two large bowls and the measuring cups I had eyed on the counter during my uncomfortable conversation with Jebet. On my way back to the classroom, I scooped up some of the dusty ground and set up a station where the children could learn to measure different amounts by transferring dirt back and forth between the bowls.

  Finally, I developed an oversized multiplication square that I had recently used with my Grade 3 students. I drew a grid and placed an X in the top left corner. I filled in the top row and left column with the numbers one through ten, and then inserted the correct multiplication answer in the box where each pair of numbers met. I made sure to write the even numbers in pink and the odd numbers in blue, and circled the square numbers with an orange circle.

  When I was finished, I called the children back in and told them they were free to examine each activity centre and choose the one that interested them the most. Interestingly enough, they didn’t all flock to the craft centre, which I had thought might happen. Instead, the kids curiously inspected a few of the different learning locations before dividing themselves between them.

  “Can I go here? Mwalimu Nicky, can I draw on the wall?” a student named Gloria asked.

  “Yes, of course. Go to whatever station you’d like.” I answered.

  Gloria retrieved a marker from the craft area and started drawing on the blank pages hanging on the wall. She was actually quite the artist.

  A few of the children in the middle of the age group practised tracing their letters. Others played with the measuring cups, laughing as they transferred the dirt back and forth.

  And then the real magic began. I started witnessing student-taught education happening between the children. The first time I noticed it was with the crafts; some of the older kids were showing the younger ones how to write their names on the back of their completed work.

  Five-year-old Gracie curiously watched Ita trace out letters. When Ita finished, he encouraged Gracie to do the same, showing her how to hold the pencil with her right hand.

  Esther pointed out one of the patterns she had proudly identified in the multiplication square to an onlooking friend. The curious schoolmate nodded her head in understanding of what Esther was showing her.

  Elated, I felt a surge of victory.

  17

  When I got to school the next morning, ten of the children were waiting outside the door, clearly anxious to get in and start the day. Their faces lit up when they saw me walking towards the school and I waved animatedly at them as I got closer. I smiled as I realized just how happy I was to see them again. I laughed outwardly as I watched some of the older kids jump up and down, clapping their hands and calling out my name. Two of the younger students ran to greet me, each of them taking a hand as they pulled me towards the school. I had never experienced such a sense of eagerness to learn, nor had I ever seen children respond to a teacher in such an energetic way. I wondered if it was the learning and studies they craved, or simply the attention.

  Either way, we filled the next two days with more group lessons, and I was overjoyed to realize how quickly the children absorbed everything that was put in front of them, whether direction came from me or another student. We fell quickly into a routine and by the end of our third day together it felt as though I had known them forever.

  On Friday, I decided to kick the morning off with a music lesson. I knew how much rhythm and beats meant to the Kenyan culture and I was hopeful that a cadenced (and bilingual!) music lesson imitating a storm would, somehow, miraculously help to bring the rainfall that we were still so desperately in need of. The students told me that the skies had provided nothing but overbearingly hot sunshine for weeks, and the crops had grown increasingly barren.

  I asked the students to help me move the desks, and then we sat in a crammed circle in the middle of the classroom. I told the children we were going to try to bring rain to the land by creating the sound of a storm on the wooden floor.

  “So, what do you think comes before the rain?” I asked.

  “Sunshine!” Samuel shouted out. I reminded the class that they needed to raise their hands before answering a question.

  “Yes, you are right, Samuel. But something happens after the sunshine, and before the rain, to tell us a storm is coming. Does anyone know?”

  Silence.

  “How about the wind?” I asked the class. “It usually starts to pick up right before a storm.” I showed the students how we could imitate the sound of wind by making circular motions on the floor. The kids smiled and laughed at the noise, realizing that thirty-six people rubbing a wooden floor actually created a pretty loud sound. One that really did resemble the wind.

  “Then what follows the wind? I’m sure you know this one,” I asked the class.

  “Rain!” The outburst led to another reminder to raise their hands.

  “That’s right. The storm is on its way, and light rain is about to start.” I pointed to one half of the circle and told them to keep making the sound of wind with their circular motions. Then, I instructed the other half of the class to hit their fingertips softly on the floor to elicit light rain — followed by striking it a little harder as the rain drops grew larger.

  I motioned for the wind to build up, and the reverberations grew stronger. The wind and the rain overlapped, and I was impressed at just how much it sounded like a real storm.

  “The rain is coming down harder! The raindrops are big, and it’s coming down in buckets now,” I shouted over the noise. I showed the children how to hit their fingers together on each hand to make it seem as though the rain was coming down louder, more quickly.

  And, then, finally, we moved to pounding the palms of our hands together very quickly, the sound inside the classroom now deafening. The children seemed mesmerized at the loud, realistic sounds they were creating. It was as if they were all impressed by the show they were watching and didn’t realize they were each contributing to its impact.

  Just as I was about to reverse the order of the sounds to show the storm passing, Jebet walked into the classroom. She was using her stick as a walking stick, but raised
it as she shouted, “What is this?! Do you call this learning? You are making a mockery of my school! Enough! Get up! Get up!”

  The sounds of the storm instantly came to a halt as the children scurried from the circle and back to their seats. Because we had moved the desks to the sides of the room, there wasn’t room for all of them and they were literally sitting on top of one another. Yet, despite how jam-packed they were, they each sat perfectly still, with their hands folded neatly in their laps. They all looked down.

  “School is done, you hear! No more shenanigans today, do you hear me? Back to chores,” Jebet bellowed. The deafening sounds of our hard rain and wind didn’t compete with her ear-piercing volume. “The house needs to be cleaned from top to bottom. And you!” Jebet pointed to John and Ita, sitting side by side in the corner. “You two boys need to go and get the water. Now, move!”

  Before I could say anything, the children fled the classroom and disappeared into the house. John and Ita remained behind, but started to walk away once the cranky orphanage director threw some shillings at them. I motioned for them to wait for one moment.

  “Jebet? Why did you interrupt our lesson? I was teaching them some music. If you would like to speak with me about my methods, I would be happy to have that conversation with you. But, please, don’t take it out on the children.”

  “Nonsense!” Jebet retorted, her nostrils flaring once again. “Work needs to be done. School comes second. Your self-made noises mean nothing compared to survival, which means getting the water and cleaning the kitchen. The house help can’t do it all by herself, you hear? It’s a large orphanage.”

  “I’m sorry, but I must have misunderstood something. I thought that you wanted me to spend the weekdays with the children teaching them school lessons?”