This one's for Bradley (And teaching adults)

So I’ve obviously been quite negligent in my blogging this past month. To be quite honest, I kind of lost interest in it and it was starting to feel like work. However, I know that there are some people out there who are interested in what’s going on in my life and this is a way for me to keep them posted. Hence the name of this post, since Bradley Kibler is one of the people that encouraged me (a nice way of putting it, she actually threatened physical violence) to get back on it. So I will try to do better and I will start by updating what’s been going on in my life recently.

There is another reason I haven’t been writing, and that’s because I don’t have as much free time since I have started teaching an adult class in the evenings. My school actually has five different campuses. There are two kids centers and three adult centers. About a month and a half ago they asked me if I would have any interest in teaching an adult class in the evenings. Since I’d settled into a routine teaching kids in the mornings and knew what I needed to do to prepare for those classes, I decided I would accept their offer. Also, I figured it would look good on my resume to have experience teaching adults and I just thought it would be fun. Not to mention they would pay me overtime. I’m teaching English Communication to a class of 6 people. It’s an interesting mix of folks. There are two university students, a doctor, a pharmacist, an economist, and a stay-at-home mom. The class meets three nights a week from 6-7:30. I basically teach from the textbook that the school uses but they give me freedom as to how I present the material. I have really enjoyed the experience and my students seem to be improving as well. Since it’s a communication class, I try to dedicate the last 10 or 15 minutes of each class to a discussion which has also been a learning experience for me. I keep it pretty open and we’ve talked about everything from religion to healthcare to government and many other things. So while they are practicing their English, I’m learning about Sudanese culture at the same time. Not surprisingly, the classroom dynamic is quite different in a class of 6 adults than in a class of 25 3rd graders. But to be honest, I can’t decide which one I like better. It’s definitely nice not to worry about discipline with the adults but seeing children get excited about learning feels a bit more rewarding. Anyways, I’m glad to have both experiences and teaching adults has been a nice addition to my schedule. In fact, the school has asked me about teaching another Communication class on the same night so I will most likely start a new class in the next week or two.

There is one interesting, although somewhat somber, story from that adult class that I want to share. The first night of the class was just an introduction. I went over the course outline, grading scheme, etc. and we just did some introductions. I wrote some questions on the board (Where are you from, what do you do, etc.) and had the students go around and answer them. One of the university students said she was from Iraq. I asked her how long she had been in Sudan and she said her whole family left Iraq in 2005. While I probably should have just kept my mouth shut, I just couldn’t hold back and I said, “I’m so sorry for what my country has done to your country.” She looked really embarrassed and said that it wasn’t my fault. After an awkward silence, I moved on to the next person. Although we haven’t spoken directly about the war in Iraq, there was one class that focused on describing your hometown. While Farah (the Iraqi woman) said she likes Sudan, you could hear in her description of Tikrit that she really missed it. It was certainly a poignant human reminder of the disruption that war has caused to so many Iraqi families. Although before meeting Farah I knew that the war in Iraq was a terrible thing and millions of Iraqis were affected, putting a human face to that conflict makes it much more real.

Anyways, that’s a first update on what I’ve been doing. I’ll try to write about a few more things that I’ve done recently in the next week or two. I hope everyone is doing well, wherever you may be