Service- My debrief: "The Invisible Curriculum" Brainshine school (11)

The Nairobi Service Trip for me was more than just traveling daily to the Brainshine School and teaching small children between the ages of 4-12 years old for 7hrs, this trip was all about reaching out to these children as well as facing and studying about Kenyan culture and building a relationship with the local community.

Leading an educational curriculum was no easy job, we had to put into consideration not only the grade level, but also knowing our roles at all time, being very flexible, developing a high energetic voice, making the kids participate more in what we are teaching, having a good pace and speed, and lastly constantly defining vocabs. However, what we thought was going to happen didn’t, given that the local school gave us a whole different teaching schedule, which left us to make one ourselves. This situation shows the Kenyan culture, as Kenyans love to please to make their visitors feel more contented which however backfires on them most of time so giving us a different teaching schedule at the beginning was to make themselves look good, Nevertheless the bright side is we got to experience the culture and we as a group we not only quickly adjusted and able to adapt to these last minute changes but also made the effort to do what we have now, like Mr. Bismeyer said “you do what you can with what you have”,  in other words we’ve shown as a school that we were resilient.

Teaching the kids was no easy job too as most of them didn’t speak English and looked puzzled, so we’ve tried every possible angle for them to learn as well as understand, we’ve used methods like taking them outside to teach, known as “exploration time” and we’ve also tried incorporating our teaching with singing and dancing known as “sing a song”. The effort of not giving up in trying to reach out to the kids was something we definitely took from.

This trip became a very significant part of my life, because I not only bonded with these kids but I feel like I’ve known them for such a long time as I cared for them like my own sisters and brothers would to me. No matter what the lesson was that we were teaching them, confused or not, they never gave up, they would always be smiling and looked forward to seeing us, they just loved us. Its really fun working with kids, it was a great experience, especially knowing that we are making a difference for these kids’ lives. We learned a lot for example; the adaptation skills we used are gifts we will carry on for the rest of our everyday life.    

Most importantly everyone on the trip made some sort of contribution, like Mr. Bismeyer said “its like putting together a big puzzle” without everyone’s contribution it wouldn’t have happened.      

Service- Day 4 Brain shine School (10)

February 2^nd 2012

Today is the day! Our brain shine kids came over at ISK (last minute plan but we adjusted quickly and talked to the ES teachers and everything worked out) they came around 9:00 am, given that they were stuck in traffic; nevertheless we welcomed them very warmly at the gate as they came off the buses all smiling.

First things first we divided ourselves into groups, Miguel, CC, Zach, Ha Un and I volunteered to take care of the Pre-K Brain shine kids while the others took on the Grade 1&2 brain shine kids. From 9:00am to 10:50am my group and I were in class with Ms. Bogging’s ISK Pre-k class, who didn’t mind at all having the brain shine kids play and be in class with them. Each one of them did their own drawings (Simon’s was real artwork), they got to play in the playground, some of them have never seen swings, slides and playhouses so it was a great opportunity for them to paly and have fun.

After that we switched, we went off in the art center department, we first went to the dance studio where we plugged on my IPod and danced to the jams at the same time we played the “freeze game” it was real fun. Afterwards, we went to the auditorium they sat on the chairs, then we went on the stage and played “Nya ma nya ma game”, at the same time my group and I performed like tour guides, as we exhibited them every part of ISK.

At precisely 11:40 we went back to ES for lunch, each kid waited in line for food contently, they were served spaghetti bolognaise, a piece of cake, salad and a glass of juice. You could see how happy they all were, because throughout the day they were very thankful to be there. I was especially pleased seeing them eating every thing on their plate (especially Kariuki he ate every bit) as in my culture not eating everything in your plate is taken as rudeness.

Later on, as a whole we went to the lower field, did activities, played soccer, watched and laughed at Paul being pulled by the kids, (I was on bathroom duties laugh.out.loud).

Today was really fun, when it was time to go the kids didn’t want to leave as they kept on waving at us, I feel like I’ve known these kids for such a long time, they were like my own siblings,  they were so sweet and well-mannered throughout the trip. 

Service- Day 3 Brain shine School (9)

February 1st 2012, 

Today was our last day at Brain shine

(We found out later in the day that they were having visitors on Friday so we couldn’t go there, so now the plan is Thursday they are coming to ISK from 8:30 to 1:30) Nevertheless we made today our best last day, we started the morning with PPI Religious class with the whole school (which was just   Pre-K and 1&2 grade) CC and Alex started off with the Jesus story then we did the “cuckoo” song it goes like this “cuckoocukoorookoo it is time to pray with daddy cuckoo before the sun is high…” the smile on these kids faces was pure happiness as we joined them eagerly. After that we helped hand out Jesus coloring pages for the kids to color. Shortly we had a break, all the kids were given their porridge in their classrooms and I took advantage of that time to go around every classroom from my pre-k babies to grade 1&2 and gave each kid a spoon of sugar in their porridge, they were so pleased, I felt great to see them enjoy their “now sweet” porridge.

After the break, Miguel, Priyanka and I went and taught both grade 1 and pre-k revision work of last time shapes, counting and the alphabet, to my amazement they all remembered, especially Nicole the youngest of pre-k class, then we went on and taught “naming of clothes” a lesson in Swahili our objective was for the kids to be able to name clothing pieces in both English and Swahili for example Viatu in Swahili equals shoes in English.

After lunch (we had Ugali + Sukumawiki = delicious!) we did environmental activity with the kids, we first did environmental clean up, which was basically picking up any trash around the whole school then we planted 3 trees around the school. This activity was to enforce the importance of trees and keeping our environment clean.   

Service- Day 2 Brain shine School (8)

Jan 31 2012

Today was “the big day”, we were both nervous and excited to teach the students at Brain shine school.

Early in the morning we set off to the school, but we came a little late and classes already began, so there was no time to take a mini tour of the school. Mrs. Eunice, the head mistress, welcomed us at the entrance, she introduced herself and the classes that were currently present, given that grade 3 and 4 were missing today, she went on about not fearing the children as they are sweet little angels who at first will be shy but later they will open up to us. Miguel and I was assigned to teach the kindergarten kids, which was a bit confusing as we only planned to teach P.E and S.st. to grade 3 so at that moment we had to teach the s.st lesson to the kindergarteners but on a lower level so they could understand and participate.

Today was challenging most of the time we didn’t know what to teach or had to re-plan what to teach as the schedules given to us was not what was being followed currently, nevertheless it was really fun Miguel and I really got along with the KG kids they were focused, hyper and mainly understood what we were telling them. We taught them Math- counting numbers, shapes, and recognizing colors, as well as Social studies- we talked about houses in Kenya then later they went off individually to build their own Lego houses. After that, we taught them English- reciting the alphabet along with words that go with the letter and sang songs. Last but not least, we read them books in Swahili and English they loved the “Mcheshi goes to the market” book  (they enjoy listening to stories very much) at the end of the story we asked them questions. They were so hyper and cheery. When it became too hot in the classroom we would tell them to make a line, then we would set off outside and continue our lesson in numbers, we did the “tap head” number they had to count everyone going around in circle, and “ball” number they had to hold the ball and count. These were great activities Miguel and I came up with.

Another challenge we had was that one of the kids was a “mini Paul” his name was Kariuki, at first we didn’t know what to do with him as he was creating chaos in the classroom, but thankfully Mr. Bismeyer was there, and showed us what to do, we took Kariuki outside the classroom where he had to stand there for a minute until we told him to come back in, and it worked. 

Service- Day 1 Brainshine school (7)

January 30th 2012,

Today was like a “workshop and practice” day,

We came to school at exactly 8:00 am and met up in Mrs. Osborn’s room.

First thing in the morning Mrs. Osborn gave us an hour to prepare and polish our lesson plans for the three days. Miguel and I went to the library he researched on the social studies our community, the different types of housing used in Kenya, as I photocopied coloring pages for the kids to cut and paste body parts in Swahili. At that moment we felt pretty confident with our contents. Later on, we had a tea break, then we went off to the elementary pre-k and kindergarten, we observed how the teachers interacted with each student, their techniques they used, for example I was going with the 1^st grade class to the library and one boy kept on stopping and causing chaos in the line (they were supposed to walk straight in line to the library) so the teacher just hold up her fingers and counted to three, this was a great technique of control as the boy quickly understood the warning and went straight in line without a word. Afterwards, some of us went to the music room with another class, some of us stayed and talked to Ms. Little the KG teacher, and took a look at her classroom and see if we could use any lesson idea at the brain shine school. After that we had lunch, then we met at exactly 11:20 in her classroom. Meanwhile we were given 10min to gather our plans and present them group-by-group to the rest of the class. 

When it was Miguel and I’s turn we began with our first class on Tuesday which was “our community”, we thought of printing out pictures of different types of housing in Kenya explain it to the kids then we will separate them into groups and give them building blocks to create their own ideal houses. The same day we have P.E we thought of having balls and hula-hoops. On Wednesday we have P.E and “our leaders” social studies to teach, we thought of searching Kenyan traditional leaders and explain the different types of leaders. On Thursday we have 2 Kiswahili classes to teach one is “Naming of clothes” for the 1&2 graders, we thought of doing a clothes line hanging paper clothing parts in a string and have each student name them in Swahili as well as English, the other one is “body parts” for the 3 graders, we thought of photocopying cut and paste body parts coloring pages and as the students are doing they will name the parts in Swahili after that we will learn a song on body parts. We were given few minutes to pick a lesson and teach it to the class. As all the groups including mine went, then later we talked about what they did well, what went wrong, and what didn’t seem interactive enough. 

In the end, we came up with the following objectives for the next three days while we are teaching: Know your role, be flexible, high energetic voice, make the kids participate more in what we are teaching, have a good pace and speed, and always define fancy words/vocabs. These were great objectives we as a class and Mr. Bismeyer and Mrs. Osborn came up with as most of us lacked these objectives during our first trial of teaching, for example Miguel and I got the energy, the pace and the kids participating but we lacked organization like who is going to say what and when. 

The goal for this trip is to have fun and learn, it’s like a great opportunity to be silly and exploring a whole new side of us.