Long before I arrived in Kenya, Tracey put me in contact with Lucy, my Kenyan angel!

Lucy went out of her way to find me a school where I could volunteer and teach.  She even took a morning off to show me where the school was, to meet the teacher and the principal, and drove me to the matatu stops to make sure I knew how to navigate the area near where I was staying and where the school was.

One morning we left Nairobi and within 30-40 minutes we had arrived to the rural village of Kamangu!

We got off the car and Lucy called teacher Laura to let her know we were there. Once I met teacher Laura we walked to the classroom and to my surprise the 22 three year olds had been left alone! Whaaat?!?! They were all standing and talking and it brought memories back from back home when a teacher would leave us alone, but never as such short age.

It was a little shocking to be honest! In the US we have very strict rules about our ratio of 12 children to one teacher and would never ever ever ever leave any child alone or we would get in big trouble with the director.

Teacher Laura introduced me to the class and then took me to meet the director. As we walked out of the classroom the children stood up, started screaming, and some even danced by the door… Would you blame them? The teacher is not around and there should, of course, be a party! haha

The talk with the principal took about 20 or 30 minutes and the whole time teacher Laura was with us. I could barely concentrate on the meeting… how about the children? They were alone and probably up to no good! haha

After our meeting we went back out and the children were in recess outside… I think somehow they have this method that works and when one teacher is out the teacher next door kind of keeps an eye on the children.

As I got out of the office I got so many stares. I had gotten used to not being an exciting person to look at in Nairobi but things in the rural areas were very different! The children stared at me, they extended their hands for me to touch theirs, some wanted just to touch my skin or my hair, many of them giggled a lot! It was very cute!
The whole school took notice that there was a Mzungu visitor and apparently I was their first ever “white-ish” volunteer!

The next day I woke up early, got ready, and left to find my way to the school that took 2 matatus and almost 2 hours!

Walking to my first matatu!

112B, my 2nd matatu all the way to Kamangu!

The school

On my first day I was introduced to the staff and I shared with them a little bit about my background in education and counseling, and also shared about the traveling journey I am on. They each had the chance to introduce themselves and shared what grade and subject they teach, and they all invited me to visit their classroom.

After the quick introduction and talking to the principal I headed to teacher Laura's class where I was told I was going to teach the children. I had no idea what to do and got zero instruction from teacher Laura on how she runs her classroom or about schedule etc. As I entered the classroom I saw that they had combined two classes together and all the children started cheering and then teacher Laura stopped teaching and made me introduced myself. After I said my name she said that Maria was easier for the kids and that they could get confused with “andrian”, a kid in the classroom, so I had to re-introduce myself as “teacher Maria” and then Laura said “Ok, now you teach”! 

Wait… what?!?!… What am I supposed to teach? How am I supposed to teach? What do the kids know? What do the kids don’t know? What is your teaching method? A thousands questions ran through my head while I stood there in shock of being put on the spot. Teacher Laura quickly gave me a chalk and said “teach letter sounds!”

And just like that I stood in front of the classroom teaching letter sounds in a way I had never taught. The African method is a “repeat after me” method (which I personally find not to be the best) so I wrote a letter on the board, said the sound, the kids repeated; then I said the sound and a word, kids repeated. 

Since I was put on the spot sometimes I had a hard time thinking of an easy word, and many times the word that I thought about the kids didn’t know so I needed a little help from teacher Laura who would at times help me with the words the kids knew. 

After 10-15 minutes and going from A to P, I thought I was done but teacher Laura said to keep going. So I grabbed the chalk and this time I drew the picture next to the letter.

The whole lesson lasted like 40 minutes of the kids doing nothing but repeating after me! This teaching method was exactly just like what I saw those kids playing in Zanzibar.

As a therapist and a teacher who knows kids I know that this method is no good and it pained me to see that 40 children were just repeating after me.

These kids repeat because that's what they are taught but there is no thinking behind this process. In Montessori we teach children the letter sounds with a process of using sandpaper letters, sand tray, figurines etc In my opinion kids are not learning when they only repeat! 

I started with letters a to h, that's 8 letter sounds which I thought was enough. Some of the children had lost interest (as they should have) and one of the teachers started screaming at those who weren't paying attention. I got startled when she screamed, I can't imagine how the kids felt! I couldn’t believe that kids were being screamed at when the teacher pretty much asked for something that their little bodies are not yet ready for.

The way the kids carry their chairs, I got hit with them a couple of times!

From my letter sound lesson they moved on to practicing their letter V. Teacher laura drew a couple of V's and kids had to copy it and color inside the big V and a Van.

Since there was so much commotion about a mzungu in school grounds I decided to go and introduce myself to the classrooms. On my first day I started with the small children, 4 and 5 year olds. 

From teaching in teacher Laura’s classroom I went to the kindergarten classroom. As I entered the classrooms the teachers asked the students to stand up and some of them even sang a long song as I stood in front of them feeling (and looking) awkward. You can tell that most of the children don’t want or like to sing the songs but still have to do it or they get screamed at or hit by the teacher! The singing is more like a screaming that instead of making the guest welcomed I felt like running away!

While visiting the different classrooms I started to notice how dark the classroom were and how they don’t have any electricity to light up the classroom. Then, I noticed that all the classrooms are extremely loud, pretty much due to the fact that they are separated by a thin sheet of wood. In one of the classroom I made a comment about how loud it was so the teacher proceeded to tap on the wood very very loudly and screamed at the teacher next door to be quiet! haha

The most shocking visit was to one of the classroom where one teacher had more than 40 five year olds in the classroom! I asked her why there were so many and she said that the teacher next door was absent and no substitute so she had to teach both classes together! Crazy! 

They all seem happy! haha

Overall the teachers seem frustrated, they screamed to the ones not paying attention and even hit them on the head at times! I don't know if I can blame those teachers for their behavior, their society has taught them that this is the way to teach! Children in order to behave should be scared of their teacher. How sad?
A Kenyan friend even told me that they were so scared of teachers that if they saw them outside of school they would go and hide away from them. That’s terrible! If one of my students sees me at the mall I want them to come up and say “hello Miss Andrea!” I do not want them to run away or hide… that's so sad!

I teach with grace, my behavior towards my students and clients is one of calmness and kindness; I want children to learn good behavior, to speak kind words, to treat each other with respect and the only way I know for them to learn is by me modeling that. This doesn't mean I don’t get frustrated or angry at children, it means that I need to work really hard at balancing my emotions and know appropriate ways to respond to children. Sometimes I close my eyes, roll them, take a deep breath, open my eyes, kneel down to their level and start a conversation that put the child’s need first, not my frustration.

The first day was very eye opening to how different it is to teach in Africa and in a place with minimal resources compared to my private pre-school in Marin County. 

The conditions of the classroom I was in was very different compared to what I was used to. The walls in my classroom were almost bare, there were only 3 tables with 6-8 students in each one, and since the school is in a very arid location the classroom was full of dust.

I also noticed that they didn't have that many materials, children were using pencil and crayon stubs to write with, they had no story books, no art materials, and very quickly I realized that the teaching method was pretty much pen and paper, even at their little age. There was zero manipulation of materials, which in my view makes it more challenging to learn, and saw that lessons were based on a “repeat after me” method.

In a way seeing the classroom left me feeling a little powerless because although I was gifting them my time I felt like I couldn’t make a difference other than my presence for the time being.

After my first day I went back to my host’s house and I thought about how I could help and improve their classroom and give them a little taste of my teaching method. I made the decision to spend some money to buy materials and try to introduce some art into the classroom.

I went on Facebook and wrote a post asking for help  from my peers for some art projects and ideas to teach letter sounds with almost no materials. Well, turns out I have amazing friends with awesome ideas! So many awesome ideas that I started a post to ask for donations thinking I could maybe get $50 to help out and get some materials for the following week but what I ended up getting was way much more than that.

In the morning of the post and with $300 donated I decided to go out and buy some materials for the first couple of days. I went on a tour and stopped at Toi Market since they had some nice posters to decorate the walls… shopping for the classroom is so exciting!

From my Kibera tour I walked to a shopping center where they said I could find paints but no luck, instead I found some foam letters that might be fun for the kids! At $3.50 each I decided to take the last 9 the store had.

Then I headed to town and walked around River Road even though Lucy said it wouldn’t be safe for me to go alone. I looked it up on the map and I had already been there tons of times and there was zero to fear, at least not for me.

The shopping process was… frustrating!

First of all everything was cash and all the donations were in PayPal or Venmo and I just had 3,000 shillings ($30!) cash and no ATM card in my wallet!

Then I couldn't find paint anywhere! and I literally asked 15 or 20 shops! I started to get annoyed asked myself: “Why don’t they have essentials materials?” And then I thought… the only essential thing in Kenya is Ugali and Beans… Breathe… It’s ok!

Buying some posters

In Nairobi there isn’t like a huge store where you can buy everything you need for school, I had to go from shop to shop asking prices and looking at what they had. In a shop I got more posters, in another glue and paper, and in a supermarket I found most of the pencils at a better price than outside. I also bought some plastic containers since organization is key when you are a teacher.

Walking the busy streets with two big bags and a tube of posters wasn't easy but I managed. Getting on the matatu was no problem since a guy took a bag from me and sat next to me and chatted the whole time, almost got another marriage proposal but I told him my husband was at home! He actually wanted to give me a Kenyan citizenship!… aaaaahh, the price of being beautiful in Kenya! haha

Waiting for the matatu on the side of the road!