The first week of school

After my first week of school in Nepal, I wanted to tell you about my impressions and experiences.

For me, every morning starts with a workout - the way to school. I think the suspension bridge that I have to cross first to get to school is pretty cool. What's not nearly as cool for me, however, are the more than 520 steps uphill that follow and make me sweat every morning. Afterwards we pass some houses with cows and goats. After about 30 to 40 minutes (depending on how quickly you walk up the steps and how many breaks you take) you'll be at the school.

Overall, the school accommodates children from kindergarten through to the tenth grade. Some students also have their younger siblings with them in the class. Classes take place six days a week. Only Saturday is free here in Nepal. The class schedule is also the same every day. The school rhythm provides for a warm meal for everyone after four lessons. There will then be another three lessons until 4 p.m.

Before classes start, all students line up in the school courtyard at 10 a.m. to first do stretching and stretching exercises and then sing the national anthem and the school song. Then the lesson begins. Girls and boys sit separately in the classroom. Attendance will be checked in the first hour. However, the individual names are not called out for this, no. Each class member is assigned a number. When the corresponding number is called, the child responds with a “present, miss.” Then the homework is checked. Children who have not completed these must come forward and do a certain number of squats while holding their ears.

On my first day of school, I was greeted and introduced after the morning program. I also got a tika (a kind of blessing in the form of red color) in the face. When the headmaster asked me about my subjects, we came up with the idea that I could teach music in the future, as this subject is not yet on the timetable. I'll find out in the next few weeks whether that really happens. In general, it is important to be flexible and spontaneous here.

On my first day of school, I was thrown into a few classes unprepared and had to teach there alone. From the second day, I joined an English teacher to get an idea of the teaching style here. I also took over individual lesson sections. It also happened more often that I was sent to classes where there was no teacher. Since the course simply works through the textbook, I was able to pick up where the class had left off in English class. I tried to make the lessons not so frontal and one-sided with rhythms and little learning games that I had to come up with.
A very big challenge for me was my placement in the first class. Since the children there hardly understood any English, it was difficult for me to give them instructions or to control them. 45 minutes can be a very long time in such a situation...

Performance assessments take place here three times a school year in all subjects. The third proof of achievement decides whether the child can advance to the next grade or not. The first two proofs of achievement serve as an orientation about the children's learning level.
Since the second performance assessments took place recently, the results were published today and the best in the class were honored. Parents were also invited. The headmaster told us in advance that most parents were not interested in it and would therefore not come. For this reason, I was surprised that some parents (of course not all children) were present. After the awards, the tests were distributed in the classrooms so that students and parents could look at them together.

So much for my first days of internship at Shree Dedithumka Lower Secondary School.