"But, Madam...you are speaking too quickly"

I never knew I had a thing for teaching until I started.

On my first day I was extremely nervous. I set out my clothes the night before, I practiced introducing myself in special English and smiled in my hand-held mirror a few hundred times to make sure I looked warm and welcoming and not crazy and over-excited to be here...

I don’t know if any of this night-before-the-first-day rehearsal did much for my first impression, but I can say that I’ve done pretty well for myself this first year. I enjoy my students thoroughly. I probably take the wrong approach to teaching – I’m more of a friend than a respected adult – but it seems to have worked well enough.  It’s a good thing I only teach three days a week because the familiarity would be too much if I were a full-time teacher. Sometimes we have dance parties when my students are too chatty. Five minute break dancing is the best way to get those kiddos to simmer down.

Form 1 (9^th grade) is a bit rusty on their English, but who can fault them? They have never been held accountable for their conversational English until secondary school and many of them don’t get exposure at home. I speak extra special English to them and we take a while to go through a lesson. They don’t always get it, but when we chat candidly, they’re surprisingly witty. I have a soft spot for these kids because they try so genuinely hard, even if they don’t get the right answer every time. They are eager to please and doing activities with them is always a ball – everyone participates.

Form 3 (11^th grade) is full of a few free-thinkers. I like it. They challenge the system, for instance, when talking about the quality of education in Malawi, one student demanded to know why formal education is pushed so heavily in a society where most people either learn a trade or farm. They like to teach me slang in Chitonga, however recently they have been making me say words and phrases and not telling me the English translation, so now I think I’m just saying dirty things and they are making fun of me. Oh lord, that’s the kind of teacher I am. Shoot. I need to re-evaluate this relationship. Anyway, overall, my Form 3s are really rockin’.

Worst day? When a student greeted me by calling me Azungu (derogatory name for a visitor), my world crashed over me. I was heartbroken. Every week I would come to the school and work really hard at teaching in every creative way imaginable and then my efforts get dropped down a chimbudzi over some kid who wants to show off. I felt a complete lack of respect from him. I wanted to quit for about 45 seconds.

Best day? Graduation.

Biggest struggle? Trying to make Life Skills more interesting – but I think I’ve created a nice little curriculum that works for me and my quirky style.

Ideal school day? Sitting outside under the mango tree talking life skills with my kids and they are participating like it’s nobody’s business. This probably only happened once. It was blissful.

How’s the faculty? They’re great. I really enjoy them. I wish they would communicate with me more about certain things – like holidays (so I don’t race home from across the country to find out school is cancelled for a week) and exam days (so I don’t have to stay up all night writing exam questions that were due four days ago) but we’re working on it. I can’t complain too much – they’ve always been helpful when I’ve had to reschedule my classes or take extra class time.

My view on Life Skills? I love life. I love skills. I named my ever-growing biceps Life and Skills. How can you get more important than that?! Real life lessons in 40-minute doses to young minds. I shape the future with awesome anecdotes on self-esteem, stress and values.  I impress with lively lessons on communication, planning for the future and decision-making. Let’s not forget the 5 week unit on HIV/AIDS – It was intense. I instill knowledge that isn’t surface deep – it burrows and festers in their little minds so that they come back asking questions. They crave the wisdom that is Life Skills.  Life Skills is light enough for me to make it interesting and important enough for me to care about what I’m teaching. [Shrug] Yeah, I like it.

Every day is not perfect in Malawi and every day that I teach is not a gem, but I must say that teaching Life Skills has been the highlight of my service. I love the structure of my week, I enjoy my students and I love having a captive audience for 40 minutes as I dance around and spew very important information that may or may not be soaked up by these little noggins.

All I can do is try and hope for the best.