Teaching and Learning

Hello to all of my biggest supporters and cheerleaders! The fact that you’re reading this means that you’ve taken time out of your day to listen to me monologue. I appreciate that. Thanks for praying and for checking up on me and caring.

So I finished up teaching the oncology course last Friday. The week went by so quickly, and I can’t believe it’s already over. Overall, it was so good! I’m going to tell you a bit about it.

In the south, there are 16 students, and all of them are believers. It’s split about 50/50 men and women. They sing together every morning. (For comparison, in the north, there are 15 students and only 1 or 2 women. Most of them are not believers). These students are bright. They really want to learn and put forth a lot of effort.

In the States, nursing students go through nursing school and then search for a job. Once they’re hired, they get a couple of months of on-the-job training. Here, this is all of the training. They come out of school ready to go. This implies that I gave them education and material that I didn’t get until I was working on the oncology floor. Going from the basics of cancer to administering chemotherapy in 4 days is a lot, but they handled it like champs.

The class schedule started at 8 with devotions, then I taught for a while, then we took a little break, then I taught until lunch. Lunch lasted for 2 hours (normally a siesta time), and then teaching again until 4ish. It was quite a schedule. One of the things I was most nervous about was how much material I would get through and if it was enough or too much. I had a couple moments of panic when I made it through my major first powerpoint in an hour and a half when I planned on it lasting 3 hours. During the break, I came up with some exercises and questions, and that was a good to determine if they were understanding anything of what I was saying. That’s the first major thing I learned: how to adjust on the fly. Some things took much longer than I thought, while others went way too quickly.

Possibly the hardest thing for me to learn has been how to ask good questions. The school system in Togo pushes for memorization, so the students were so quick to pick up on facts. However, it’s a lot harder to ask questions that really test comprehension. In addition, writing quiz or test questions is a skill that I completely underestimated.

How hard can it be to write a multiple choice question? (select all that apply)
a. hard
b. harder than you expected
c. very hard
d. all of the above

Answer: d. all of the above

I am really bad at coming up with wrong answers. I am not good at making my questions clear. I have a hard time turning a concept into a question. In my free time, I need to take up a course in question writing because that is a major deficiency.

Another difficulty was explaining the same concept in a different way (complicated by translating it into another language). I’ve precepted and taught enough in other situations that I do have some experience with this. It can take some time, and I honestly felt like I was caught in quicksand a few times, but when they give you a little nod and lean back in their chair cause they get it now, that’s a very rewarding feeling.

A big lesson was that I am terrible at correction. If I could find a way to acknowledge a wrong answer without ever telling them that they’re just plain wrong, I would be very happy. I’m sure this is something you can gain over time, but I am terribly guilty of trying to twist a wrong answer into a right one. I’m still on the learning curve.

I love teaching. I loved developing rapport with the students, and I will continue to pray for them as they finish school this spring and start their careers. They are amazing. On the first day, I tried making a few funny remarks and got blank stares in return. As the week went on, it got more comfortable and they’d actually laugh a little (not too much though- I’m not actually that funny).

Lastly, I just want to acknowledge how incredible this opportunity was. The nursing school director has never seen me teach (mostly cause I never have in this setting), and she took a chance on me. (I sincerely hope she isn’t regretting that decision) She gave me some great advice- especially on the first day when I was struggling. I got to develop my own materials, and it was translated for me into French. It was a big leap for me, but I gained so much. I hope the students gained something too.

Heading back up to Mango tomorrow! I’ll be there for the next 7ish months as far as I know. I’m looking forward to being back. Even though it’s hot.

Have a great day!
Because they haven’t heard,

Caroline