Hello from Ouagadougou! Before I explain why I’m in Ouaga (there will be extensive descriptions in a future post), I need to explain a bit about our Model School and the wrap-of training.
Our “stage” or training group is comprised of people from two of the four Peace Corps sectors in Burkina Faso: secondary education (SE) and girls education and empowerment (GEE). Of course I’m part of the SE program and will be teaching physics/chemistry (PC) (they’re combined here). As part of our training, the Peace Corps organized a summer or “model” school for us for the month of August. Students from the Ouahigouya community paid to attend our math, science and IT classes. The program consisted of four weeks of instruction and included two tests. The levels taught were 6e, 5e, 4e and 3e or roughly middle school – high school. At the end of the school the top three girls and the top three boys from each class were given prizes in the form of paper and other school supplies.
I ended up teaching the 4e PC classes (3-6 classes each week). It was so much fun and teaching in french wasn’t difficult at all! The Model School helped ease our jitters and gave us a better sense of what our two years in BF are going to be like.
Model School finished with a ceremony last Friday. People gave speeches, awards were handed out and there was even a dance performance by some of the 4e girls. By the way, the girls rocked the classes, getting the top marks in nearly all the class levels.
In addition to wrapping-up Model School, us trainees were finishing our training. We took tests in language, cross culture, security/safety, technical and medical. For language we needed intermediate mid and a couple weeks ago I attained intermediate high. Whew! :)
Saturday we had a thank you ceremony for our host families. We spent the week-end packing and on Monday left our families. Tuesday morning we all loaded into a bus at six o’clock (am!) and headed to Ouagadougou (more on this next post). So now I’m writing this post from the lobby of our hotel in downtown Ouaga after have a vanilla chocolate chip ice cream cone! It really is the small things in life that matter. Hot showers are paradise and wifi an extreme luxury.
Our “stage” or training group is comprised of people from two of the four Peace Corps sectors in Burkina Faso: secondary education (SE) and girls education and empowerment (GEE). Of course I’m part of the SE program and will be teaching physics/chemistry (PC) (they’re combined here). As part of our training, the Peace Corps organized a summer or “model” school for us for the month of August. Students from the Ouahigouya community paid to attend our math, science and IT classes. The program consisted of four weeks of instruction and included two tests. The levels taught were 6e, 5e, 4e and 3e or roughly middle school – high school. At the end of the school the top three girls and the top three boys from each class were given prizes in the form of paper and other school supplies.
I ended up teaching the 4e PC classes (3-6 classes each week). It was so much fun and teaching in french wasn’t difficult at all! The Model School helped ease our jitters and gave us a better sense of what our two years in BF are going to be like.
Model School finished with a ceremony last Friday. People gave speeches, awards were handed out and there was even a dance performance by some of the 4e girls. By the way, the girls rocked the classes, getting the top marks in nearly all the class levels.
In addition to wrapping-up Model School, us trainees were finishing our training. We took tests in language, cross culture, security/safety, technical and medical. For language we needed intermediate mid and a couple weeks ago I attained intermediate high. Whew! :)
Saturday we had a thank you ceremony for our host families. We spent the week-end packing and on Monday left our families. Tuesday morning we all loaded into a bus at six o’clock (am!) and headed to Ouagadougou (more on this next post). So now I’m writing this post from the lobby of our hotel in downtown Ouaga after have a vanilla chocolate chip ice cream cone! It really is the small things in life that matter. Hot showers are paradise and wifi an extreme luxury.
last class
SE trainees
the audience
officials
dancing!
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