HOW DO WE HELP THESE STUDENTS?

I’m back to Agbonle and let me quickly mention that other than my students, and my fellow corpers whom I missed terribly, I also missed atarodo! Fresh red pepper!

So much so, that the first stew I made was sweat breaking, pepperish! I think I embraced the peppers too tight, forgetting their potency! Me that didn’t love pepper, you needed to see me while I ate.

Is it that there’s no red pepper in Anambra? No o! But back home, my mother isn’t a great fan (that should explain why we don’t add them to the list of things to buy). But my short sojourn into a Yoruba land made a lover out of me.

Okay, now that my new found love for pepper is out of there, let’s continue.

Have I told you about my PPA? The school I teach in and my students?

Agbonle is a non-gated community. This means you can walk in and out of places almost undetected and my students have no problem exploring that option during school hours.

What worries me most is not their truancy or how they seem to like play (and farm work) way more than they do books, it’s the disturbing reality that 70% of my students cannot read and of the 30% that can, 10% do not understand what they read. I teach English and Biology; I got the later because of my course of study (Botany) and the former, I requested for, because of my love for it.

Taking the JS1 and JS2 students in English is probably my most enjoyable time in school; because somehow, I manage to make it 50% understandable. But my SS1 and SS2 classes are the most challenging. They don’t fall into that 30% that can read. It’s a poor 10% and their English comprehension is way lower.

I do not state all of these to debase or mock my students. Maybe I’m going through the process of telling this so that I see whether you have any actionable guidelines. This is turning out to be a tale like no other (smiles).

How do you increase reading proficiency? I already have some raw ideas, I still need to test run them. But share with me..

And how do I explain Biology (as complex as it can be) so that with their little comprehension of English, they can grab.

Or is this really a lost cause, like I’m made to believe?

Did you do Biology in secondary school?If your teacher did a good job of explaining the subject, share a few tips. Hopefully, I’ll find a way to localize it.

Somewhere in there, I forgot to add how much I missed you.

Happy New Year, once again. How are the goals coming up?

Remember you’re light, keep shining.
I love you…boundlessly!

PS: come around this Monday to catch up on an inspiring article under a different category.
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