Teaching in Action

Kuna semina nimesema tulihudhuria way last three months. Well the org which organised, and financed it called AfricAid founded by a young American girl to suppor girl education. Hebu watembelee afu utajua mengi zaidi na kuhusu semina pia. Bofya hapa

Orbirtuary

One of our students, Levina Aloyce committed suicide last week. As matter of fact I didnt know her good but I can say she was a cool, ambitious and hardworking student who would have finished form four this year, but she's gone!
I wrote a poem for her

Death
's like an announcement over PA
blaring loud and clear

for everybody to hear
yet there comes fear.
But if Father's home we're all wanting
death is the only way to go?
can't we get used!

Anna Gamazo Sec

WHY SCIENCE SUBJECTS ESPECIALLY MATHEMATICS.
BY Nemayan David
Edited by Hyasinter Tarimo

As the matter of speaking, they normally say science subjects are difficult, other say they are not understandable and some are saying they need a tolerant person. Is it true? Can we accept the slogan? Why shouldn’t we do something?
Science subject especially mathematics is immense problem in our academic ‘safari’. It can be identified that, this is the problem of the whole world. According my research, I discovered that the thing which pushes back science subjects is “LAZINESS’’. Most of the students do not struggle and they do not bother to disturb their mind.
Apart from laziness, also there is lack of cooperation among students and between teachers and students. Obvious students do not want to listen to what they are told by their teachers. They are obstinate to practice their responsibility.
To have a good performance in this subject, laziness should be abolished, also having cooperation between teachers and students.
Also it needs a lot of time in doing revision of what has been taught in the classes. If Kifungilo why not Anna Gamazo? So bear in your mind that;
“NO SWEET WITHOUT SWEAT” also “NO PAIN, NO GAIN”.

Anna Gamazo Sec

I'm organising a mag for the school written solely by students this is one of the articles:
MANG´OLA WITHOUT ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
By Wenseslaus John

Mang´ola RC church should be given reputation congratulation and grateful for the necessities done by this church here in mangola. This church under two priests Pepe and Michael they have brought changes in Mang´ola.
In terms of believes this church was trying to change people from their wrong believes that have been conducted by their leaders. At the beginning there were few worshipers compared to nowadays. Also RC church tried to expand its branches so as to make good word of the God known to the people.
Father Michael and Pepe did this for their coming to Mang´ola we know Mang’ola has endemic diseases like malaria due to this disease majority of people have died without any treatment but after the coming of these Fathers they got an idea of building a hospital which after building they found skilled people to work there.
At this time the hospital christened “Askofu Hando” is under the supervision of Miguel and Pepe also this hospital has developed in technology for the treatment of sick people because now the hospital has the well equipped laboratories, X ray room and operation room and enough medicine for treatment compare to the beginning.
Also on the other hand these two priest saw that there another problem that the people of Mang’ola needed education that could help them to manage their life so they built a secondary school called ANNA GAMAZO SECONDARY SCHOOL their supervision and stills this school is progressing enough while it is going to have Advanced level (A-level) students this year 2007 according to their good supervision they have enabled to bring good teachers who are teaching very well compare to the results of form two national examinations in 2004, 2005 and 2006 also the form four results in 2006 the school has tried to give the students more tests in order to do well in their examinations
Therefore these two priests should be given more respect and congratulation for what they have done in Mang’ola for their coming to Mang’ola in 1993 when Mang’ola was like unknown area that people can not live compare to now day’s Mang´ola is still developing day after day in the stimulation brought by these priests.

Nipo Mang'ola Chini

Well mimi ni mzima, naomba kutao ka taarifa kuwa kwa sasa sipo tena Edmund Rice bali nimekimbilia porini wilaya ya Karatu ka shule kanaitwa Anna Gamazo. Huko hakuna internet hivyo habari na picha zaidi labda at the end of the moon nikija town. Kuna mengi ya kueleza, picha na matukio. Hivi unajua kuwa vitunguu unavyoungia mboga viinatoka mitaa ya huko nilipo? The land is fascinating dry, stony, windy but deadly rich-soil valley where maize, onions, rice and many others grow.

Huku wamejaa WaTindiga, WaIrawq, na makabila mengine hasa yale ya Stone Age
pia WaChagga wapo wengi na ndio wamiliki wakubwa, kama kawaida yao, wa maduka na baa.

Climate ya huku very frustating, you can't tell whether its semi-desert, but it has a valley whose land produces hefty.

Shule iko financed na lady toka Spain called Anna Gamazo thru her organisation called AGH (Anna Gamazo Humanitarian Foundation?) well kitu kama hiyo.
Kama kawida nafundisha Geo na Eng, classes are smaller here and students though not very able but can!
Next taim!!

MWUCE shall live in me!

Hizi photos ni za grad. 'Twas early Feb. As I'm here for a seminar I came across them on the internet computer at the college and thought it'll be good I have them for you ndugu mdau.

This is the way (road?) to the dorms; on this one some friends in Y1 diploma, (L) Agripina and (R) Rosalia






This another 's SantaClaus and Agripina, one of the my favourite girls. 'Twas in the night, full of 'boob', we were having Serengetiz kwa kwenda front that day. See the man....

Na MissMacha yupo!

Hapa ilikuwa grad. She's in Vunjo Sec now. Malamiko tuuu ohh mitoto haielewi Maths. Halafu inafeli mitihani yangu. Basi tu tulipiga mistori! Kushoto kule ni Madame Mariaflora sasa yupo Tanga kuna kashule ka girls kule anapambana. Taarifa nilizonazo 'kachana' huyoooo!

Nimepa-miss 'home'

We are here for a seminar? workshop? titled 'Teaching in Action'. Did not come as many may be others are busy or couldn't afford staying for 5 days 'free!' Meals isn't what people need most when it comes to a semina! Salamu zao
Started yesterday morning with address from the Principal and the #1 case study was 'Large Classes' presented by Mr Nnzao. 'Twas fine though started boring. More news later I'm going for lunch

Whaaaaat!

Did Laura see this? And who's that guy down there? And godamnit, the 1 behind?

ETW

Sat 26th May 2007

The GraveSide

• Lost my phone
• It started late
• Hated being there
• Hated being there
• Bit boring; same, the taught and ‘taughter’! read Freire

What had me there!

• Programme: English Teachers’ Workshop (ETW)
• Venue: Makumira Secondary School
• Facilitator: Mr. Tamamu, Deputy Zonal Inspector of Schools, Northern Zone.
• Theme: Strategies for Presenting Language III texts.

How it went

1. Introductions; just your name and school you are from as plain as that, my name is so and so from there! (do not ask me what I expected!)
   
   Do you know what are frozen relations? So we started off the day with an Ice breaker:
   a. What dries as it gets wet?
   Towel, tissue paper
   b. How many eyes do you have?
   Two (2)! Damnit that’s obvious! even a blind would say so. Be ‘eyes’ though this is a distracter.
   c. Which river in the world has four ‘aiz’?
   People were caught and started asking which ‘ai’ but the answer was the Mississippi. Therefore the idea of Homo-phones, nyms, graphs etc.
2. Then followed a Warm up activity; facilitator was really pressing on this that teachers do apply this in class. An example; gone into a class that had Maths the preceded period, got in, start right away with your English lesson! Phew!
   So we did an activity on Anagrams: more on wordsmith
   
   Sort out the following anagrams as shown in the example below:-
   Change agree into another word for keen= eager
   Now you can do this:
   Change asleep into word used by polite people
   Change beard into something you eat
   Change below into part of the body
   Change bleat into an item of furniture
   Change cheap into fruit
   Change swap into an insect
   Change thing into time of day
   Change cruelty into word for knives, forks, etc.
   Change chain into a country
   Change flog into a popular sport
   Change flow into (a) an animal (b) a bird
   Change super into something you keep money
   Change lamp into another part of the body
   Change hated into something that comes to everybody
   Change rat into a substance used in making tarmac roads
   More on anagrams on the net including this one from manythings.org, I liked this site, this one creates anagram after you've put a word. To be honest being a student is one of the most few sweet things in the world that I enjoy
3. Now to the THEME
   

   HANDLING LANGUAGE III TEXTS

   
   Some questions rose as ‘why should it be called lang. III?’ etc. (any guess?)
   Some flashback followed thing like
   The theory of Literature
   The definition:- artistic use of lang. to reflect social realities.
   More on Internet Public Lib and on Wiki

Consider:
Marriage has lot of problems (plain lang.)
A husband is a band to bind your life
A wife is a knife to cut your life

So we agreed that literature is

• Imaginative
• Artistic
• Uses lang. as medium
• Expresses social experiences, realities, problems etc. political, cultural, economic etc.

Then followed lengthy discussion on figures of speech; similes, metaphor, hyperbole, irony, satire, and well you know ‘em. <more on fig. o speech; activity, wiki
We went through topics as Literature and Society and saw that lit. develops from the society as it draws political etc. experiences from that society. Consider Hugh Langston’s
‘The Ballad of the Landlord’ or Claude Makaay’s ‘If we must Die’.
Followed by Literature and Culture and concluded that lit. is an expression of culture. Consider ‘Three Suitors one Husband’ and Ngugi wa Thiongo’s ‘The River Between’.

We then did Types of Lit.(oral written), their differences, Forms/Genres of Lit. ( non-fiction fiction drama poetry), form and content, and wind up with Functions of lit. (didactic aesthetic)

The day was steamy and hot, we took a break.

The following session was mainly on teaching strategies and methods; specifically how to get pupils interested, motivated etc.
The facilitator introduced two excellent methods on ‘Characters and characterization’ namely; Name dropping and Cross Word puzzle.

An example of Name dropping taken from 'Things Fall Apart'
I innocent
K knowledgeable
E energetic
M martyr
E entertaining
F friendly
U unexpectedly meets death
N naive
A adaptable

After general introduction and quick explanation of the two method we got into work; trying to create the two activities using different texts. Before we left we had to display what we did in the groups, I enjoyed group work dearly.

Bwawa la maini!!

Kwanza hongereni kwa kipindi cha kwanza cha soka la kuvutia na poleni kwa kipigo. Lakini dont mind even the coach himself appreciated the good job done by the The Rossoneri labda huniamini hebu soma hapa mwenyewe.

Mwl. Chum wah key upo?

Kweli kazi ipo!

Halafu mlete ubishi, eti ualimu Kazi?

Mi sijui sana lakini hilo jibu lina look korektle muno hadi nakuwa konvinsd!

Do I need a title?

No idea!

Sina hakika lakini nafikiri naanza kupotoka! Hivi nilipoanza kublog what did i wanted to show the world?

Teh tehe!

Who's who?

Cjui ncheke?

Sanaa ni Kioo

Sina hakika lakini nafikiri bado unamkumbuka Bi. Mkora wa Majira, gazeti huru la kila siku. Mcheki hapa! Yuko full ooi!

Ze Dustbin!

Ndugu wadau haka kaPasaka kanakoishia-ishia nilikuwa mgombani aka Moshi. Leo naandika kwa sababu kuna vitu viwili hivi nilivyoviona nataka ku-share.
Kwanza, usafi. Inawezekana na ninakubali kuwa Moshi ni kamji kadogo, pia hakana population kubwa hasa ikifika jioni kwani waChagga wote hukimbilia Machame, Marangu, Kiwoso, Mwika na kwingineko kulala lakini jamani Moshi kusafi. Kilichonivutia zaidi ni hawa akina mama wauza ndizi mbivu. Wako wengi siku hizi pale Moshi. Wanatembeza ndizi zao kichwani mji mzima. Wao tofauti na sehemu nyingine, ukinunua ndizi na ukaonyesha dalili kwamba utaila hapohapo, watakusubiri umenye, ule halafu wachukue ganda. Nilimuona mmoja kabeba ndizi kwenye sijui tenga lile? Pamoja na maganda yake. Halafu akafika kwenye “dustbin” (Kiswahili hapa nini?, kopo la taka?; kiwekea taka?; Msaada kwenye tuta!) nakumbuka ilikuwa ni pale Kibo Coffee Bar, akasimama aka-unload maganda aliyokusanya kwenye mizunguko yake akaondoka. Umombo hapa ; I was really moved!

Pili, vitambulisho kwa chingaz pale bus stand. Kumbe hili nalo linawezekana, kuwawezesha vijana wajasiriamali kutambulika kama waajiriwa wengine. Pale kituo kikuu cha mabasi wana kautaratibu ambako kamenifurahisha. All chingaz aka wamachinga aka marching guys/ladies wana vitambulisho na sare? (uniform). Wauza mkate, wauza matunda wote, moja wanavaa makoti (kama yale ya waganga) meupe au hudhurungi mgongoni ymeandikwa kwa maandishi makubwa:

• Muuza mikate Stend: Fuata sheria za Stendi
• Muuza matunda (ndizi?): Fuata sheria za Stendi
• Chinga Room No. XX: Fuata sheria za Stendi

Mbili wana vitambulisho vyenye picha, jina na stamp ya meneja wa stand. Safi hiyo!
Mimi nafikiri hii ni changamoto kwa town councils, municipalities na city councils nyingine hapa TZ na East Africa kwa ujumla na pia kwetu cityzens kwamba usafi unaanza na sisi wenyewe. Halafu baadae waje site (soma ilivyo sio neno la kiIngereza) au manispaa.
Kalaghabaho!!!

AFTER LONG!

Hullo outta there! It has been long since I last wrote phew! My fault? May be! Well, I had this two-week time stuck up for the Nashunal diploma in Education Exams and then goes to this other side of the country where Internet is an alien thing. After a long walks and fruitless effort over getting a job, I finally struck one at Edmund Rice Sinon Secondary School in Arusha. I’m yet to get settled. Lots to do, plan, write, mark, just a hectic of a thing!
So wadau, be informed that I’ll be coming to you live from ERSSS in A-town. I’m getting to know around and I think there will be much to talk about over few days.
At present I’m teaching something like 25 periods a week. Geography in F.3 D, Civics in Form 3 (About 200 kids!) and English in Form 4 B. To be honest I never wanted to do any Civics whatsoever, but well I’m doing it. Be told, the thing is boring and I really hate it and it does hate me too, equally!