week 3

Here's a quality about myself that I am not sure whether or not I like. When I am with people who I love, my life has significantly less productivity. I am happy to mess around with friends, joking all day, and making absolutely no forward progress. If there are ever laughs to be had, I try to be the one having them, which is a quality that has high costs. This is the reason my grades in college are so mediocre. I can't sit down and work consciously knowing that somewhere in my dorm somebody is doing something idiotic and awesome. This attitude, however, is also what has probably led me to some of my life's greatest experiences, such as comedy, college crashing, and Africa. Anyway, the reason I am bringing this quality up is because on Monday a lot of the life of the Cherokee group left (Victoria, Page, Bethany, and Martha), leaving me with significantly fewer buddies in my idiotically awesome exploits (even though Mary Chambers, Matt, and "The Edge" have totally picked up the slack). This newfound free time began as something depressing because I had made some awesome memories with them, and they constantly kept fun levels "to the max"; however, the solitude has given me a great opportunity to completely reform my curriculum.The problem with all my students is that their English is awful. I've got a hundred rational minds, each expressing its thoughts in a language that the world doesn't care about (and why should we?). If I can cure the problem of English, every Ethiopian can get straight A's. Here's another issue I have encountered: the parents play almost no role in the educational upbringing of most of the children. I guess so much focus is put upon survival that parents aren't really interested in teaching times tables to their kids. What my students need is a way to learn English outside of school, so on Monday night as my thirst for idiotic awesomeness remained unquenched, a great idea popped into the void of laughter, an idea that would integrate the need for English with the need for education within the family unit! A new, daily, homework assignment... Write all of today's notes in Amharic.The best way to retain new information is to link the desired information with information that you already know; in the same way, I believe the best method for a resident of Addis Ababa to learn English is to build his understanding upon his primary foundation of Amharic. This new method will lead to understanding rather than memorization of meaningless Englilsh words. Unfortunately, this new assignment is very difficult for my students because they invariably have to ask their parents or older friends for help daily, and the homework has become a very hard sell. After I gave a speech to my classes, however, about the importance of my assignments to their understanding of English, they all began to turn in their homework with sincere effort. The last vestiges of opposition to my methods exists in the realm of the parents. Some parents are a little perturbed by the idea that a randar foreigner who doesn't understand Amharic has the arrogance to assign homework which requires fluency in two languages for completion. This disdain showed itself in two instances. 1) Nardos' dad helped her with her homework, but her Amharic translations were total nonsense. "Television, carpet, trees, car, basket"... her dad was justifiably skeptical of my ability to check the homework I had assigned (Benjamin checks it). 2) Abanezer's father wrote me a message that said "This homework too heavy. Do not assign it. I can not work." I responded "This homework is essential for understanding English." I then corrected the English in his message. Here's the awesome part: over the past week my students really have become more confident in their English, and my dream is that this knowledge will bleed into their tests.Yesterday was one of those ridiculously fulfillilng days. Here is why... two days ago I told a begging kid that he needs to feed himself, after he asked me for food, but after my rebuke he still helped me find the stop for Mexico in Tor Highloche. As an offer of my gratitude, I said "Inglisinya lamamarl efelligalla?" (Do you want to learn English). He said "Yes" and I quickly wrote down a bunch of useful phrases that came to mind, then hopped into the taxi to drive away. Inspired by this incident, Hareg helped me make a guidesheet after school which had about 40 useful phrases and translations in Amharic (the Elvish looking language), and we printed off 25 copies. The next day, as I walked back from a really stressful day of school with Jessica, some kid tapped me on the shoulder and said "Hello". I said "How are you?" He said, "I am fine thankyou, and you?" Surprised by the English response, I turned around to see the beggar from yesterday, holding the paper I had given him. His desire to learn really touched me, and I spent a good portion of the day meeting people and handing out the English guidesheets. When somebody asks for food I always say "This will give you food" and give them a sheet. I guess today I will find out if anyone learned from the sheets I had given them. I am about to leave for school, and I can't wait.On top of the inspiration and confirmation that my presence here is appreciated by the street kids, I had a very heartwarming visit to Tedros' house, where his father repeatedly thanked me for helping Tedros as a teacher. He told me that ever since I started teaching, Tedros has used nothing but English inside the house. Nothing could get me down yesterday. I really felt a sense of purpose, a lack of which is generally my only obstacle to being happy. Yes... I am really happy right now.