By Kelsey Wolf
The best part about working with the kids here is making them smile. For the past five weeks I’ve been working with four kids from stage three who were very far behind on reading. We started out with the alphabet. The first two weeks went very slowly and I was easily frustrated. The kids didn’t always listen to me and they never did the little homework that I assigned to them.
With perseverance and some help from the kids everything clicked one day. All four of them did their homework and they were excited to start our session. I was so excited that they were excited they thought I was weird because I couldn’t stop smiling and yelling "good job!" at them.
The best part about working with the kids here is making them smile. For the past five weeks I’ve been working with four kids from stage three who were very far behind on reading. We started out with the alphabet. The first two weeks went very slowly and I was easily frustrated. The kids didn’t always listen to me and they never did the little homework that I assigned to them.
With perseverance and some help from the kids everything clicked one day. All four of them did their homework and they were excited to start our session. I was so excited that they were excited they thought I was weird because I couldn’t stop smiling and yelling "good job!" at them.
They fed off of the positive feedback that I gave them and they started doing even better. Everyday at the end of our session I talk about how they did for the day, what they need to work on, and, my favorite part, that they did well. I go around the table and give all of them a high five then I say "good job guys!" and give them two thumbs up. They think it’s funny that I give them thumbs up so they started doing it too. Whenever I do it they all drop their pencils, put their thumbs up, and smile.
The high fives and thumbs up have moved outside the classroom. Whenever I see the four kids outside they give me a high five and two thumbs way up.
Note: Kelsey is volunteering at the Bishop Forson School for 8 weeks. She is tutoring and conducting a workshop.
Tags: africa, teaching in africa, volunteer in Ghana, volunteering in