Teaching with Limited Resources

One of the things that was discussed a lot during the Orientation was how we could be effective teachers in a situation where there are limited resources. I think that our conversations and the workshops mentally prepared me so that I wasn't shocked by what I saw at BHS, but being in the situation and trying to work around the problems has been quite the learning experience.

First and foremost, the thing that's missing the most from the schools are the teachers. There are some teachers who always come to work on time and teach all of their classes. Compared to what I've heard about other schools, even New Amsterdam Multilateral (where I live), Berbice High is relatively well organized and well staffed. However, there are quite a few who show up late to work if they come at all, and these same people show up late for class or for registration (attendance), which really interferes with the effectiveness of the people who are trying to teach. In Colleen's situation, the teachers show up to school, but then they proceed to spend all day in the teachers' lounge instead going to class. Because of the way the classrooms are designed, it can be difficult to teach the kids even when the adjacent classes have someone teaching a class and keeping the kids relatively quiet. However, when the classes don't have a teacher and the kids are getting loud, communicating in the class can become frustrating, if not next to impossible. Some of the science teachers in the upper classes work around this by taking their class to the lab. It's not a feasible thing to do for every class, but it's something I hope to be able to do more, especially as I start doing more practical activities with my students.

Adequate numbers of textbooks is another big problem. Some kids have their own textbooks, but most students get their books from the school bookroom. There aren't enough for each child to have their own, so either the students have to form groups in class, or they have to go to another class to borrow a book. Last week I had to distribute books to my form class, the kids who I'm responsible for to take attendance or in case there's some problem in the class. There weren't enough English books to go around, so I had to randomly pick the kids who were going to get a book. The hardest part was near the end, when one students quietly mentioned to me that he didn't get a book as I was leaving the class. Knowing that some of the kids won't have access to books for homework, and would have to go around asking to borrow one for class is still hard for me to think about.

BHS is lucky to have a science lab and some supplies, but even there the resources are severely lacking. I've been working with some of my kids on the cell and the microscope, and part of the lesson was for them to actually go and look at specimens so they would have some hands on experience. Corin and I went in a couple of days before my activity to look at the scopes and see what slides were useable. We found that there were only two, and they were very simple microscopes that used a mirror for a light source and weren't powerful enough to magnify in much detail. We got them to work ok, but it struck me that just six months ago I was using microscopes that I could use to see the details of animal cells and even bacteria, something I couldn't even dream of doing here. Even in middle school I used microscopes this powerful. Every now and then, when I'm standing in the lab, I can't help but think about the wide difference in resources I had growing up and what these kids have.

One of the major challenges I've faced in school so far is working around the lack of resources and their repercussions. It's something that we all have to figure out throughout the year as we go along.