Chekechea Day 3

I walked to work again this morning by myself. Personally, I enjoy walking by myself because I like to walk slowly and enjoy the view. When I got to work today, all the kids were so excited to see me. They kept saying “Emily!” and then would just smile at me. It was very cute. I am slowly starting to learn all the kid’s names and feel very proud of myself for doing so! Today I mainly just helped the kids with their activities on the floor. There are some things about the school that I am starting to notice and not really like. For example, during the first circle time, at the end of it the kids are asked what day it is before they can be excused to go start an activity. If they don’t know what day it is, they get punished. These kids are only 3-6 years old! I barely even know what day it is sometimes. They are expected to say what day of the week it is along with the day, month, and year. It’s crazy. Two of the punishments for not knowing have included squatting with both of their hands raised in the air and frog hopping across the classroom and back. Some of the kids have even cried while performing these punishments. It’s really sad. Another thing that I have noticed that I’m not too sure about is that they don’t encourage the kids to play collectively. They are very strict about the students sitting on their own mats and completing their own activities. The kids are scolded if they are playing an activity together. For example, the other day 3 kids were playing with blocks and pretending to build a fire and then cook over it with the activity material that contains bowls and dried corn. These kids were scolded and told to return to their own mats and work on their own activity. How crazy is that?! The kids were being creative and using their imaginations! I always thought that was kind of how the Montessori system was, but it doesn’t seem like it through this school. It was really shocking for me to see that. I thought maybe it was just a one-time thing, but I have seen it happen more than once.

            After work, I returned to the house where we ate lunch (fried rice and salad) and then Justin came over to talk about our research projects. We talked mine over and refined it a little bit. I think I am specifically going to look at the teaching style being teacher centered vs. student centered in the Montessori school as well as how kids are being disciplined in the classroom as well as praised or rewarded. I’m excited for my research and I think it’s going to be very interesting. It is going to be a lot of work though. I’m not as stressed out as I was before coming here because I now feel like I am getting things taken care of and I have the time to complete everything. I was originally most worried about the MCD assignments, but now I think my biggest task will be my own individual research project. We also got our schedules today and found out that we also have work on Saturdays. Which was a bit surprising. It’s just until 12 though as usual so that’s not too bad. We also are scheduled to have volunteer movie night and craft night so those should be fun.