Stinky Feet

I’ve always disliked feet.  Generally, mine are dirty.  And I have little short stubby fat toes attached to my very long feet, so in general, mine are awkward and displeasing.  Aside of the obvious necessity for them, I have little use for feet.

Why am I even talking about this?  Well… let me back up a little.

I’ve been teaching Math and English at LCP each morning to the School On Wheels youth.  School On Wheels is based on the “mobile school” model popular in the Philippines.  In many large cities, teachers will drive around shantytowns in a bus, load up impoverished youth, take them to a safe area (oftentimes a shaded field) where they can share a daily lesson and when possible, a meal.

The great thing about School On Wheels at LCP is that the youth picked up are brought to the LCP campus.  We meet in a small classroom, have access to basic materials, and have the means to provide a daily meal.  Our current students range in age from 5 to 13.  These students do not attend public school for a variety of reasons, mostly because they cannot afford to be there.

The youth have varying experiences with school. Needless to say, this is a group of high needs youth.  Fortunately, there are three of us adults working with the group of 11 youth.  It sure sounds like a lot of teaching-man-power… and anyone who’s taught or tutored struggling students will understand how sometimes anything beyond a 1:1 ratio can feel overwhelming and a little hopeless. 

Our School On Wheels Classroom

After our morning exercise routine and a few songs, Stella (another volunteer from the States) takes the gamay (little ones) while Jesiel (my counterpart) and I keep the daku (big ones).  We have 6 boys with lots of energy and very little English speaking skill.  I typically have the group    of 6 by myself while Jesiel starts the meal.

At first, I worked really hard to keep the group together.  We’d practice reading, writing, and arithmetic… together.  

Yeah right.  To be honest, I spent a lot of time saying things like “come back here” and “sit down”.  I finally realized how much this ‘system’ wasn’t working the morning I had the brilliant idea of teaching the boys how to do addition with stones; I spent that morning dodging the stones as they were thrown at me.

I decided to try something different.  Jacques had brought me a box of notebooks from NORSU (apparently professors collect student notebooks at the end of each semester if the students don’t want to keep them themselves).  I thought it might be exciting if each of the boys got their own notebook. 

I started slow.  I gave each boy their own notebook with basic additions problems inside.  I quickly learned that simple addition was way over the heads of some of the boys, and too basic for others, which lead me to understand the beauty and importance of differentiation.

Before, some of the boys were throwing stones at me out of frustration and others out of boredom.  With individualized math problems, the boys could move along at different paces, their paces.  This allowed me time to give more attention to the boy(s) needing guidance, while the others worked independently on the problems provided for the day at their level. 

The boys really seemed to enjoy finishing their daily assignment.  I would check their answers right in front of them, circle the ones they needed to rework, then put a huge star on the top of their paper when the answers were all correct.  I’m blown away at how hard they’ll work to get their star.

One morning the boys entered our classroom, sat at the  table, and began chanting “Math! Math! Math!”  I’ve tried to stay disconnected from the outcome of “my teaching”.  I’ve tried to remind myself I cannot force them to learn.  I’ve tried to remind myself their learning is theirs to own.  And, I’m not gonna lie, with their little cheer, I was beaming. 

That morning, with an ear-to-ear grin, I passed out their notebooks and let them begin.  Kenard came and sat next to me with his notebook.  He had been doing really well with basic addition so I had increased his difficulty to multiple digit addition.  Kenard is a very bright student and also the most easily frustrated (he was the leader of the throw-stones-at-Alana pack).  He pointed to the new problems with his pencil and with a scowl on his face indicated they were too difficult. 

Well, reveling in the “they-love-math-nothing’s-gonna-get-me-down-teacher-high, I sat with Kenard.  We completed a couple of problems together.  I watched him do some on his own then I sent him off to finish so I could work with another student.  A while later, I looked up to see Kenard hunched over his propped up leg… sitting in his chair, looking at the floor, playing with his feet, not writing in his neat little notebook.

Guess which one is Kenard...

The tough thing about getting all filled up and feeling high and mighty is the deafening pop  when my bubble bursts.  Warm-fuzzy-I-love-teaching feelings whooshed out the door.  In their place came a familiar control-freak voice in my head that almost said out loud “Kenard, get back to work!”

Before the angry words came out of my mouth, Kenard picked up his pencil and jotted down an answer.  Wait!  What?  I continued watching for a bit.  Kenard looked down, seemed to be talking to himself, picked up his pencil, and wrote down another answer.  It took me a while to realize what was going on.

He had not given up and resigned himself to staring at the floor.  Kenard was using all of his known resources to solve the math problems that now included numbers beyond 10.  He could no longer rely on his fingers alone.  He cleverly solved that problem.  Kenard was now using his toes!

So there you have it.  Even stinky feet are good for something.

School On Wheels