Teacher Talk

Today we spent all day with representatives from the University of Namibia Teacher Education department who gave us the lowdown on what to expect in our classrooms. Maybe it’s wrong of me to be surprised that 95% of what they were teaching us is exactly the same as you would learn in a U.S. school of education. Bloom’s Taxonomy, learner centered lesson plans, constructionist theory of learning, etc. etc. etc. Then we were shown the Namibian national standards for learning which look amazingly (in format at least) like the Sunshine State Standards. I learned that Namibian teachers were expected to complete long range unit plans, including instructional objectives and learning objectives, and then weekly plans. Finally, they presented us with a daily lesson plan template which was almost exactly the same as the ones used at Stetson for teacher training! I hope I’m not being patronizing by being so surprised, but it was certainly nice to discover that I won’t have to reinvent myself to teach in Namibia. Having said that, they next gave us the not-so-good news that many of the teachers in the village schools we’ll be going to haven’t had any formal training and therefore (disappointingly) my primary role when I get to Uukwiyuushona will be more teacher training than working with students. Having said that, I can only conduct staff development after school when the teachers are free; therefore, I will have plenty of opportunity to work with the learners (in Namibia, school children are referred to as “learners” rather than “students” – the term “student” denotes someone at university).

Oh, yes, we also went through training on our emergency evacuation plan, which would be through the Peace Corps if anything actually every happened necessitating us getting out of here fast. We got a secret code and everything.

Sorry that there are no exciting adventures to pass on so far. I still have several days of training in the capital city and the real interesting stuff will come once I get to the village…. Unfortunately I probably won’t be able to update this as often then.