If you haven’t read it yet, make sure to check out part one here. This August trained teacher Delia volunteered to give numeracy and literacy tuition for children at the local Institution that we visit. The return travel takes 5 hours from her home city and, because of her work commitments, she is only able to come on a Sunday. Here’s some of Delia’s comments from working with the children:
It was good with the children on Sunday. I changed a little bit the way I work. I called two of them in every hour and I felt that I could help them in this way more. I was content with the result. The other children were all the time near the windows asking me from time to time when I take them to the lessons.
With seven of them I did the multiplication table. Io. entered the classroom without being asked. Io. does all the time what he wants but this time he entered without saying anything and sat silently down on a chair. I gave him simple exercises of addition and subtraction which he did.
An. has such a swiftness at counting that I could hardly believe it. At some point I was so astonished that I thought that she was copying the answers from somewhere and I looked around to find out from where. She had to convince me that it actually was her who did the counting! She really keeps her presence of mind with the adding up, she does well with the multiplication, too.
She needs a lot of affection, she is in the third class, but according to her age, she should be in the sixth. I think she is very frustrated for her situation as she is bright just she needs to be helped.
When I finished them, they didn’t want to leave the classroom, so the other children could come in. I needed to explain that I should work equally with the others, so finally they understood me and left.
The conclusion is that one never gets bored with the children in the Centre.