Starting Nursery School

Since everyone is sharing their kids’ first day of school stories, I figured our story might be interesting. 

Back in August I visited the director of an organization 1 km down the road, seeking a volunteer position. It is run by a European Lady called Mama Maria and has a Nursery School, Primary and Vocational School. The assistant director has been looking for a way to solve an over-all educational outcome problem, here in Uganda, where students don’t seem to graduate with critical thinking and problem solving skills. She has assigned me to look into the matter, observe classrooms, come up with some proposals as I assist in classrooms as a volunteer. Last week I started in the Nursery school ages 3-6. I also bring my 3.5 year old twins, which is a trial to overcome. The first week was great because the kids just play and the teachers prepare their classrooms and register students. The twins played great and I thought we had it down because they seemed to be working the crowd like rock-stars.

But this past Monday was when the classroom time started. And that was also when the problems started to crop up. Big assembly with 300 kids usually consisted of one teacher trying to keep the attention of all students, while I slowly became the side-show. My girls clung to me as half the assembly of kids slowly by slowly encircled us, watched us and then began touching the three of us. At least 10 little hands in my hair, grabbing my hands arms and just as many on my twins’. I can deal with it but my twins went insane. Mommy, there’s too many people! Stop touching me! After which it escalated into inconsolable screaming and kicking a biting as the Ugandan children laughed with glee. This happened several times during assembly and playground time, once another teacher had to rescue us by running at the kids with a raised stick, scolding loudly in Lluganda. (Yes, they do get beatings at home and the raised stick is a threat they listen to.) I told my husband that this is just the kid version of what happens to muzungo adults. The good thing is that this scenario only happens when I am with the twins. When they navigate the playground themselves, the kids who want to help them and be friendly to them will fight off the kids that touch them to antagonize them.

Being that this was a European funded organization, I had expected that these kids would be accustomed to white people. But I’ve asked and discovered that they have never had any white students in this school. On my first day there, the students were given a lecture on how to treat the new teacher and the two new girls. Some of it I didn’t quite understand. Then I saw the founder come to visit the school during playground time and I understood a bit where this behavior comes from. All 300 kids went screaming and running toward this woman, seeking a touch from her. She got completely mobbed. Hopefully, these kids get used to the feel of our hair and skin soon and we will no longer be such a target of curiosity.

Glory is absolutely ready to learn. She understood what letters she was supposed to write in her class of 60+ 3 yr olds. That evening she talked about how she was writing letters in school. Gracie was a bit more of a mess that day. She hadn’t gotten enough sleep and everything was upsetting to her. We actually had to escape early on the first day of classes. The girls were having an absolute meltdown on the playground when we tried to passively escape the mob of 100 kids who were chasing after us on the playground.

I’m excited for my new task here. I would love to develop a science and discovery type curriculum for this school. I’m just not sure where I will be taking my twins to nursery school though.