After spending a week and a half with my parents while they were here visiting in Guatemala, I was excited to get back to see the classes and what they are up to! Mateo’s class unfortunately was not meeting today, and Lucia did not have any students in her class. She said that sometimes Fridays are low attendance days since the students are allowed to miss one day of class per week.
But I did however have a chance to observe both Manuel and Odelia’s class today… and I actually learned quite a bit sitting in on these classes. Manuel’s class started with their math lesson today… and I was at first quite confused at what they were learning. Manuel had three little boxes drawn on the board… one on top of another. And inside the boxes he had a number of lines and then dots on top of the lines. Then he gave the lines and dots numerical values depending on which box they were in and the students had to figure out the number value of each box and then add the values of all three boxes together. Now I sat there and tried to figure out what they were doing for most of the class. I thought perhaps this is like something to do with an abacus or was maybe the way my parents learned to do math back in the day before they had calculators like I had growing up in school. Finally when the students were working on some practice problems (reinforcing the lesson they just learned), Manuel came back and asked me if I understood what they were learning… and I was like umm… no. And he explained that these were Mayan numerals… and he explained a little more about the function of these numbers for me. Well all the kids in the class just started laughing and making fun of me in Tzu’tujil because I was a teacher and didn’t know Mayan numerals. And then Manuel explained to them that we come from different cultures and that we learn different cultural things in our schools sometimes… a little cultural lesson… as well as a lesson that even though we in developed countries think we have education figured out there are things that we too need to learn.
The students also seemed to be having lots of fun with practicing the problems in their notebook and having Manuel check the problems… when a student got the answer wrong, he would go back through the problem with the student and have them figure out where they made the mistake which is great for them learning to correct their own mistakes. I see why I always here from students that math is their favorite subject in school; they get a chance to use their critical thinking skills!
In Odelia’s class, she only had 2 students today so instead of using the board and a more formal style of teaching… she sat down in between the students and worked individually with each of them in their notebooks, and had them slowly read aloud to her. This was great for each of these students to have a chance to read get one on one help… especially with sounding out words. Sometimes in a big class when the students read together, students who are not getting it can blend in and get passed by with out the teacher really knowing the level of each individual student. So I think this was a great opportunity for these two women, and Odelia has such a soft patient voice and style of teaching.
This next week I will hopefully be able to observe both Mateo and Lucia’s class and send an update of their classes with my next email!
