Sunday, September 7, 2008

Maths Education for Matonyok

9/8 –Well, another week has gone by and both the Teacher Training and the Matonyok projects have shown some progress.  First, I met with two different teachers who would be willing to offer critical analyses of teaching methods for those teachers selected for TFFT’s program.  This is important, as selected teachers will be spending time overseas in a new educational environment.  This environment will include new teaching models and ideas, and to accustom the selected educators for this experience, we’re planning on establishing a pre-departure training program where the Tanzanian teachers will be given feedback on their teaching methods and ideologies.  Hopefully, after this training, the teachers will not be that shell-shocked by the American teaching paradigms.  


Second, the Matonyok project is coming closer to signing a contractor for the sanitation unit.  I write ‘closer’ because I’ve met with the young man who Emmy, N’demno and I have all selected as our favorite, and we’ve already written an estimate for the job.  The next step is meeting with our lawyer to get a legally binding contract with him to complete the job by December, and within the budget.  I hope to have all of this completed by Wednesday.  


On a completely random note, I’ve begun teaching math classes at Matonyok twice a week.  For those of you who know my mathematic ability, this should be mildly amusing.  However, the class level III is learning multiplication, division, fractions (my favorite), decimals and other things that I didn’t think I would ever be teaching to a class of six.  Just goes to show you.  Either way, it’s a blast to get back in the classroom again after these long three months.  I’ll keep you posted to see if my tutelage is actually worth its weight in salt.  Happy second week of September, all!

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