Regarding: March 5th - March 10th, 2017
So, you may have noticed these posts are jumping between events that happened 4 months ago and events that happened in the past week. The plan, basically, is to try and post 2 posts a week: one that's current, and one that catches the blog up on the first 4 months of my time in the Peace Corps. For example, you'll notice this week there is a post about my travel day (which occurred ~4 months ago), and then there is this post about my role during my first 3 months at site (which is "current"). Next week I hope to post about the first part of Pre-Service Training (which chronologically follows the Travel Day post) and then about D.E.A.R. day (which chronologically follows this post). The idea is, hopefully, at some point the old posts will catch up to Welcome Weekend and then I can move forward with only current posts.
I'm not sure if that makes it more confusing or less confusing, but at any rate I'll try to be clear about what dates the posts are about by indicating at the beginning of the post what time period the post is meant to cover. Furthermore, I'll organize the posts in the blog chronologically by the date they're meant to cover instead of the date they're posted.
That all being said, this post is meant to follow "Welcome to the Best" and is going to give you some idea of what I'm actually doing at site!
The Job as a Whole
First, I should explain Peace Corp's Uganda's purpose for being in Uganda (as far as the Education sector is concerned). PC Uganda works to serve Uganda through what is known as the "Primary Literacy Project".
What is the Primary Literacy Project?
"Peace Corps' Education Sector (in partnership with Ugandan's Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Sports) works… to ensure inclusive and quality education for all." (Which really narrows it down…)
Kay but like, how?
"Pupils in Uganda will gain access to literacy through teachers trained in literacy teaching techniques, access to culturally relevant learning resources, and safe schools. The three project goals are to improve teaching, improve pupil success, and to improve the school community."
Laura, please stop quoting your PC Handout and tell me what you're doing.
Ok fine. My job: I came to Peace Corps Uganda under the broad umbrella term of "Education Sector". We are supposed to, as a whole, focus on literacy in primary schools (the Ugandan equivalent to elementary school). Once in Uganda, our cohort was divided into two groups: "Teacher Trainers" and "Literacy Specialists". I am a Literacy Specialist.
Teacher Trainer
Teacher Trainers teach at colleges for aspiring primary teachers. These colleges are called Primary Teacher Colleges (PTC's). Generally, as they teach older students, Teacher Trainers are the older and/or more experienced members of a cohort. In our cohort of ~34, we have ~7 serving as Teacher Trainers.
Literacy Specialist
As opposed to Teacher Trainers who work in colleges, Literacy Specialists work in primary schools. Literacy Specialists teach literacy to pupils either by teaching (or co-teaching) an entire class and/or by working with smaller groups of pupils in small group reading intervention groups. Literacy Specialists also work to promote the use of their school's library.
Both Teacher Trainers and Literacy Specialists are responsible for promoting national literacy events such as D.E.A.R. Day.
So on to how a lil-ole'-Literacy-Specialist spends her first 3 months at site…
The First Three Months at Site
First, for context, let's look at the Ugandan school calendar. The public Ugandan school year is divided into 3 terms of 3 months each. Here is my public school's academic calendar for reference (the list of public holidays have been excluded):
During the first three months at site, the school's first term, education volunteers in Uganda are supposed to focus on learning about our school and community. I think Peace Corps Uganda does a good job of recognizing the importance of being knowledgeable about your community before it is possible to make a meaningful impact. In order to give volunteers time to gather information about their school, Peace Corps Uganda does not encourage us to teach during the first term, but instead gives us 3 other focuses:
The School Profile Tool
E.G.R.A. (followed by small-group reading intervention groups)
D.E.A.R. Day Preparations/Execution
The School Profile Tool
The School Profile Tool is a packet of weekly assignments we are to complete and submit to Peace Corps Uganda each Friday. These weekly assignments are focused on helping us learn about our school and our community. For example, an assignment might be to interview a teacher at our school (sample interview questions are provided) or draw a map of our school grounds. By way of example, this week I interviewed the chair of the Disciplinary Committee at my school to learn more about how school's philosophy and procedure on punishing pupils.
Although I have looked ridiculous walking around the school compound with a pencil and paper, I think overall the School Profile Tool has been a really helpful incentive to get me to learn more about my school. In particular, I have to acknowledge that the School Profile Tool has made me ask questions I would not have thought to ask on my own, such as finding out more about the school's feeding and special needs programs.
I have included a map of my school below (school name omitted) for those curious about the layout of one Ugandan public primary school.
E.G.R.A.
E.G.R.A. stands for "Early Grade Reading Assessment". EGRA is a way to test how well pupils can read English. PC volunteers serving as Literacy Specialists are required to test all P4* pupils at the beginning of the year and the end of the year. At my school, this is a bit challenging because there are four P4 classes of ~100 pupils each. That's nearly 400 P4 pupils total.
Oy.
(As a side note, I will never be able to empathize with an American teacher who feels that 30 students is too chaotic.)
* P4 = Primary 4 and is roughly equivalent to 4th grade
After we finish testing P4, we are to form a few small classes with some of the pupils who are struggling with reading English and work with those classes on a weekly basis. We call these small classes "small group reading intervention" groups. We will continue working with these groups throughout the year.
D.E.A.R. Day
Many of you will be familiar with Drop Everything And Read Day! Yes, D.E.A.R. Day is a national event in Uganda, and we are celebrating our 4th D.E.A.R. Day this year on March 15th, 2017 at 11:00 AM (post next week to tell you how that went at my school)! Woo!!
For those not familiar, D.E.A.R. Day is supposed to encourage everyone to shift their attention to reading together in order to send a powerful message about literacy. National D.E.A.R. Day draws attention to the importance of literacy and promotes a reading culture. Participants are encouraged to get involved in any way possible. Common forms of participation are silent reading, buddy reading, read alouds, writing workshops and having guest speakers who can read to the audience and speak about the importance of literacy. Since its beginning in 2014, National D.E.A.R. Day has reached over 100,000 people in Uganda. All PC Education volunteers in Uganda are required to promote and organize D.E.A.R. Day at their schools or colleges. (Roughly quoted from a PC Uganda DEAR Day Handout.)
So, between the School Profile Tool, E.G.R.A., and D.E.A.R. Day, I have been kept quite busy at site. In addition to these formal requirements, I have been trying to watch each of my teachers teach at least once in order to get to know them better and learn from more experienced teachers. I have found this to be a very effective way at getting to know my school community. I am happy to report that I started with P7 and have seen almost every P7 teacher at this point, and I feel so comfortable with them now. In fact, we even had a political debate a few days ago (it was a very pleasant, enlightening experience that I look forward to sharing in a future post).
I know a common PC challenge is finding enough meaningful work to do at site, but I personally have not found that to be a problem. If anything, I have found myself having too much work, but that's a pleasant problem to have.
Moving forward, at the end of this term I will meet up with the rest of my cohort for our "In-Service Training" (IST) (and you thought only U.S. teachers had In-Service days…). This training is about a week long. After IST, I will return to my school to begin teaching (ah!), work with small group reading intervention groups, and develop the school's resources (e.g. - library and/or computer lab).
Although long and dry, I hope this post has given some insight into my day-to-day professional focuses at site. I look forward to sharing my first experience helping organize a D.E.A.R. Day!
In lieu of the torrent of Dr. Seuss quotes lauding reading, I found this one and thought it fitting for a post meant for an audience across the world:
"We read to know we're not alone."
- William Nicholson, Shadowlands
Until next time.
