Editor’s note: Mocha Club member and volunteer, Annie, is blogging from Capetown, South Africa on the Mocha Club trip from May 28th-June 10th. This is our first official “trip blogger” so please help us spread the word and check back for updates!
We spent this morning traveling to three different 7th grade classrooms to help teach character education. We were told on Monday that our topic would be “availability”. Uh…. what? “Availability”? Pretty much we had to teach on the importance of being available to people who ask for help- like parents, friends, teachers, and neighbors.
And by the way. Here’s some fun facts for you- each class has about fifty students. You heard me- 40 7th graders and NO TEACHER. I know ten Americans that were a bit nervous about this idea. (And we have ten team members. You do the math.)
Here’s where things get hilarious.
We were told to plan for 40-minute blocks- so we did. Betsy and Emily both gave a short testimony, Ernie taught the students to sing “Lean On Me” in three part harmony, Quinn told about the little boy who gave Jesus his lunch to feed the five thousand, and then Ellie taught them to make a “helping hand” craft/game thingy that they loved.
And it lasted 40 minutes.
Then the teacher said, “I would like you to teach for another hour.”
EXCUSE. ME.
I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to entertain fifty 7th graders for 40 minutes, but once you survive that, an ADDITIONAL hour feels like a nasty, nasty future.
As a former elementary school teacher, I was elected the ringleader of this circus, so I definitely began to sweat a little bit at figuring out 60 more minutes of an entertaining show.
We survived it. Ernie sang another rousing round of “Lean on Me”. We reviewed over how we can be available to the people in our lives. And we let them sing a song to us in Xhosa (their native language). Then we pretty much shuffled our feet, looked nervously at each other and our watches, and allowed the students to act nuts.
It was not the highlight of my teaching career. But it was funny.
The rest of the day may have been the highlight of my teaching career. We went to another school and taught two 7th grade classes the same lesson. These literally did last only 40 minutes, which was a relief. The kids loved us and squeezed us and told us how happy they were that we were there.
It was a full day. I can’t wait to show you the updated pictures of the preschool we are completing. It’s looking great. I won’t say that Marisa is challenged in her zebra drawing skills… I’ll just let you judge for yourself whether it’s a zebra or a tiger head on a striped cat body. Whatever.
Each night, sitting around the dinner table, we list our highs and lows. It was overall such a great day that everyone raved about their high moment, then said, “uh… I don’t really have a low… maybe it’s that I woke up late?” That’s a pretty good day.
Some people said, “My only low is that I haven’t gotten to spend any time alone in six days”. So our team has been sitting in ten different spots for the last hour, just enjoying the quiet.
It’s late. I’m the only one left awake. There are one hundred other stories I could share with you from today- my mind has spent most of the evening shuffling through them to pick which ones to write about. About the cute children? About a mechanic that’s writing a curriculum for a mechanic school? About how much Asian food we’ve eaten? About gluing tiles to the floor while simultaneously gluing your gloves to your pants?
All of them are worthy stories- because every story is about a life. A face. A family. A new friend.
~ Annie
