Uganda: Making a Classroom

So, I know a lot of you who are reading this blog are teachers. And I want to thank you for all the work that you for your kids. My students just returned from their final school practice, basically student teaching for a final grade. Its very similar to student teaching in the States, except they are only there for 4 weeks and there is no trial period where they observe the teacher, they are just thrown into a classroom of 90 1^st graders and told to go. One major difference in Uganda is that a large portion of the students grades are based on the “classroom environment”. They are encouraged to make their rooms look like American rooms, but without the help of nifty quotes printed on plastic and appropriate shelving units. Though I admit that buying laminated cutouts of lady bugs and sentence strips that are already printed might be a chore..... this is significantly harder. They have to “build” an entire room out of locally available materials. That is the big push from the ministry of education right now. I think (like many things here) that is great in theory and a bit dismal in practice, but my kids work is phenomenal. Below I have included some photos of the things they made in their classrooms.

This is what a classroom looked like the first week of the students teaching. This is better than what it looks like with the regular teacher and has about 1/4 of the students.

Our clock: made from paper, cardboard, bark cloth and reeds.

Musical Instruments poster: Made from bark cloth, markers and poster board

Our shop: (shelves) made from papyrus and bamboo, covered in toilet paper and paper. (girl) made from banana fibers, toilet paper rolls and rags.

Nature Table: (table) made from banana fiber, sisal and sticks. (food) made from newspaper, cassava flour, dirt and water.

Animals found at home: (writing) made with glue and dirt (animals) made with furs from local animals.

This is just a regular poster, but I really loved it. It was in a first grade class. Pretty sure I think that every classroom should have this on the wall.