Dear Family and Friends,
You have probably noticed that the journals have decreased in number and size in the last 4 weeks, as our Mwangaza team and staff:
1. hosted the first seminar week for the teachers of the 5 Pilot schools,
2. spent the next week wrapping up, assessing and adjusting to make adaptations for the second,
3. another week facilitating the second seminar with teachers from 8 other secondary schools,
and 4. spending the time since wrapping up and prepping for the visits to the Pilot schools, plus a Friday trip to Makumira to lead Carol Stubbs class (left picture)as she and Megan were heading back from the US. Copy machine got a work-out, as did those of us writing comments and reviews of 60 plus lesson plans and compiling copies for teachers to share their plans -- both a first for our times at Mwangaza.
Packets pictured include: a. the binders of lesson plans and an addendum to the Mwangaza Resource Book, b. a Sheltered Instruction book for each participant, c. mini-books (one story fitting on a back-to-back page folded into booklet form) and the lesson plans which go with, d. the English proficiency assessment, f. a flash drive (in the baggie) containing seminar information, content area websites, and power points of topics in each of the subject areas,
and g. a Vodacom (phone/internet company) modem (in the white box) which contains a replaceable memory chip and plugs into a computer port. A new chip can be purchased when that memory is used. The modem contains the program to download the connection to internet and can be used in any number of machines, one at a time or connected to a few by a splitter. Pretty amazing option for schools which do not currently have normal internet connection options and will allow us to be in contact with these schools/teachers from Mwangaza and from DeKalb.
Tuesday, with materials prepared and packed into boxes, we sat to discuss and determine the on-site process, as would be visiting one school each day, Wed-Fri and Mon-Tues.
Welcome and Greeting Reception, reviewing the seminar objectives and purposes of this visit, presenting materials and setting the sequence of events, assessing the students and installing the modem -- quite an ambitious visit.
John and Salome are very patient with we Americans as we are checking our watches and writing explicit timetables, then help us prepare for reality by reminding us that it's very good to have a plan, but sometimes adjustments must be made according to the environment and the circumstances. They help our team have a positive result to the "Danish philosophy of life" equation: Reality - Expectations = Happiness.
Notice everyone was smiling on Tuesday !!
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