burning questions, like bushmeat

9/30/2002: EE Working Group

Newsletter Topics/Features:
-Green skills
-Personal experience
-EE announcements/committee
-EE in the field (or "in action")
-Province ecology
-Trivia/factoids
-PCV interviews
-"In the street"
-In the news

...EE meeting was a little less than organized today. started late. without Wendy, unfortunately. so our agro and educ APCDs took the reins. not much help. on our part, we [PCVs] were just jabbing away. PCV talk. Green PC Cameroon, Green PCVs, etc. the list above is from one of the final topics we discussed, the newsletter. we'll crank it out by Wed, insha'Allah.

Tara and i are doing the "in the street" piece. ask a handful of people about a burning question, like bushmeat. i think we'll do that. our APCD made us laugh/wonder with a comment or two about eating and transporting bushmeat. whether people thought it was legal or not. we'll ask the PC drivers, cameroonian and expat admin staff, etc. should be good.

at the Hilton with mama. picked up right where we left off. like she was here only yesterday. i'll be off to Omnisport [the PC office and volunteer house neighborhood in Yaoundé, named after the nearby stadium] in the AM. mama, too – maybe. she'll meet the CD in the morning or après-midi. depending on what she'll have plans for the rest of the day.

to do in yaoundé...

9/29/2002: Things To Do...

• APCD [Assoc. PC Director] – World Map project
• David [Training Director] – Pedagogic materials for proposed workshop
• Mama – SCORE shopping list
• PCMO [PC Medical Officer] – Schisto?!
• USA Cultural Center – GRE stuff

EE committee, Yaoundé

9/29/2002:
at the Kaelly Hotel in Yaoundé. mama arrives in another evening. 2 long days tomorrow and the next. EE working group meetings are all day. through 4pm.

Wendy [EE coordinator] has it all set up like a conference/workshop. which is cool... not the same ol' same ol'. but, seems like the same old agenda: PST, IST, Green PC Cameroon, resources, etc. i've got to do something about formal resources. EE resources, that is. in the classroom and with schools i suppose. we'll see what i can come up with.

i'm off to pray and sleep. would like to pray maghrib/'ishaa' at Tchinga, insha'Allah. the trip here was fine. went well. thank God! Wum-Bamenda, 3 hours. no mud, really. B'da-Y'dé, overnight. i slept, on and off. i paid Ibrahim 6000cfa for the ride [Wum-Bamenda trip on a moto]. good guy. good people, his family.

Alhadji [Ibrahim's older brother] might help with getting moms and i back to Wum. God helep! Alhadjijo [Ibrahim's younger brother] had quite a trip to Nigeria. a film, actually. with stolen papers, money, clothes, dead bodies and all! Manjo [Muhammadu Omaru] is back in Wum. haven't seen him yet. all right... the rain is coming.

busywork?

9/27/2010:

ASSIGNMENTS [while i'm away...]

Year 2
-EE: Biotic Interaction Terms; "Copy the following terms in your assignment books and give an example for each term. Do not use the same example more than once."
-AppSci: HW from 9/24/2002 (2 Qs on plants) and Collect/press 6 leaf specimens

Year 3
-AppSci: Workbook activities #s 1, 2 and 4
-EE: back by Thursday, insha'Allah (GLOBE activities)

-photocopy assignments. label day/time to be completed and give to the class prefect. also inform DS [dean of students] and SG [secretary general?].

let me stop

also 9/26/2002:

1/3 of infected people in Cameroon are young...

Students let's STOP the spread of HIV/AIDS:

ABSTINENCE
FIDELITY
CONDOMS

-individual student presentations
-modes of transmission (Charles and Manka')
-prevention strategies (Loveline and Hyacinth)
-"re-investment" activity (Mohamad)


...so, this HIV/AIDS presentation during our seminar had to be altered again. of course the school's admin, with their myopia and poor planning, neglected to consider giving us a break in the schedule during the seminar. from 8am to 3pm we were at it. just like Monday. just like yesterday. zero planning. zero efficiency. let me stop... again, i'm bitter.

we scrapped 3/4 of the program. just had the students read/present their entries. which went well. the students read well. they were heckled a little. the VP – sleazy bastard – sarcastically asks "you use condoms?" Mr. Kum Abraham then stupidly parrots him and asks "you have gonorrhea?" immature, inconsiderate and unprofessional pricks.

i about called them out individually. just couldn't believe they were doing that to our students! instead, i kindly asked teachers to refrain from commenting and to be serious about the topic. they were like children! the change in behavior from the seminar to our presentation was disgusting. but let me stop.

i shot a glance at Paul as the VP was making a comment. just eye contact. too telling. it just takes one for a support network. so i bit my tongue and sat down. pick your battles, i guess. we met afterward and debriefed with the presenters. i spoke then. asked the teachers (not pointing anyone out, but they knew) to be careful with our students. it's a cheap shot when someone is vulnerable. especially your student. i was indirectly direct. but i said my part. again, let me stop.

a handful of people (even Kum) congratulated me on a job well done. sympathy? sincerity? whatever... Paul bought me a drink. the rain fell. i'm home now. thinking about anger, frustration, release, apathy, loss and loneliness. let me stop.

the words coming out of my mouth

9/26/2002:
i need to release. tired now. just walked back up from GHS [govt high school] to GPS [govt primary school]. hot sun. need water.

OK. Maggie and i did the EE Club at GHS this morning. i talked and talked and talked. big class. timid students. weren't understand the words coming out of my mouth? and i barely gave Maggie or Chindong a chance to speak. it was terrible.

i was talking about our GLOBAL VIEW of the environment/earth. you know, space picture, astronaut quotes, people you know... trying to get them to think about our global/interdependent environment. passed around photos/globe/map and GLOBE equipment, just to make it less abstract.

did it work? did they understand? i don't know. but i do know that i over-talked... felt bad for Maggie. even apologized. but if anything good came out of this morning, it was that maggie and i agreed that we need to sit down (the two of us with Chindong) and think through / plan out what and how we'll do for this club: topics, activities, schedule, etc.

now... let me put that behind me and "listen attentively" to this NPA seminar i've just arrived at (quite late!).

a lesson that engages...

also 9/24/2002:
so, with all this talk about the critical/inferential thinking and "new" pedagogic approaches now i'm confused. read the lesson above [roots, shoots and leaves]. i did no lecturing – well, little to no lecturing. group work. students knew all the material or could get at it with a little guidance. just ask the right questions. and i've been doing all this since...

sometimes it works. sometimes it doesn't. either you pull it off, or the students are left confused and asking "where are the notes?" at least the rest of the staff is trying now. or trying to try.

the lesson note above [types of soil] is a sample i wrote out during a meeting for our seminar tomorrow. on the NPA, of course. what's difficult is following the structure of the system. technicalities and semantics!

i know how to write a lesson that engages, encourages critical thinking, is interactive and builds upon what students already know (and students know a great deal). i don't know how to pigeon-hole the logically fluidity of that process into these stages they propose. i just do this naturally... i think it's how my mind now works.

i find myself struggling to categorize steps/questions. is this hypothesis or research? research or synthesis? observation or what?... i think the semantics confuse me, that's all. i'll learn and be more familiar with them than i'll ever want to be soon enough, with teaching practice and lesson note marking.