Teaching

Science lesson

Here at the school, we were told, that we even have

a science lab. How excited we were. However, when we had a look, we were slightly shocked! They have a few chemicals, some microscopes and that is it! When we just think about all the stuff that is thrown away at our last working place! Just some tubes, bottles, pipettes would be really useful! And it would make such a difference! But having almost no resources, you need to be much more inventive. And therefore, the bottom of plastic water bottles gives us really nice beakers for performing chromatography or using them to grow crystals. As mortar and pestle, we use a stone and a little bowl from the kitchen.

However, at the beginning of last week, we went with one of the science teachers to a science warehouse. It was a small place in Pokhara city centre, that sells lots of chemicals and some old stuff, that we normally would discard in our labs. Well, in case we will not find a job after the time in Nepal, we probably could go around in labs and ask for old equipment and then open our own science shop here in Nepal.

But the amount of chemicals, they are selling in the warehouse is quit impressive, some of them more then impressive - you can find bottles of phenol and benzene not even labeled as toxic. At the end, we left the place with fresh ethanol, tubes, Whatmanpaper and other small things and went back to the school. Really motivated we started straightaway a DNA prep using spit and it worked beautifully. 

Last Sunday I was suddenly asked to perform a science class in addition to the English class. That was a bit surprising because when we arrived here, and offered to give science classes, we were told that it would be better if we could teach English. However, at the moment, we have holidays and one of the science class teachers is away, so there is suddenly need for our scientific expertise. Well, that’s great, so finally, we can do so experiments!! And hopefully, we can continue it.

After being told to give a science lesson, we also got the science book of class 10 and looking through it, it is really astonishing, what kind of things they have to learn here! Just a small example:

“The most recent system of classification is called the ‘Three Domain System’ in which the traditional kingdoms disappear and the three major domains (Bacteria, Archea and Eukarya) get the priority.

For the requirement of grade 10, we still concentrate on the two kingdoms plants and animals.”

In the diagram below, you can see the kingdom ‘Plants’ and below in the same sub-division: ‘Algae’, ‘Fungi’ and ,Bacteria’. Well interesting that bacteria appeared from plants!

On Monday, Wiebke decided to give a lesson about pigments, so that the students also can perform a chromatography using plant material. As we mentioned before, after visiting the science shop, we have at least Whatman paper, ethanol and a mortar and pestle. That will do it!

The students are not used to perform scientific experiments and so we thought it will be hopefully something really exciting!

DISATER! This is the only word I can use for this class! Alastair was still resting and therefore I had to deal with 30 students in a really small room. Just to sum up: out of 30, only 1 student was really interested in the subject, the others were completely bored. During the 45 min it was not one minute silent, some students didn’t want to sit next to others and also didn’t want to sit at the benches and so on. At the end of the lesson, my voice was gone and I decided that this would be the last science lesson with class 10. It is a pity because looking at their science books; everything looks a bit boring talking only about plant kingdoms, classifications, mitosis, meiosis, nitrogen cycle. Having real experiments running, we thought that this would excite them. But maybe they are so trained for front classroom science lessons that it is difficult for the students to adapt to a freer lesson, in which they need to do something by themselves. After this experiment with class 10, it seems to be better to start either with a small group of students; organizing a science club for only  interested students or we work with younger students who seemed to be more excited. 

English Lesson

During the 10 days holidays, Alastair and Wiebke are teaching class 10 for English 1 hour every day.

The level of their English is really high but we noticed that their pronunciation is not really good and often they speak really low or are too shy to say anything. Therefore, we decided to use our lesson to improve their self-confidence in speaking English and also to help them with their pronunciation.

The idea of our lesson is to use an Irish folk story and rewrite it into a theatre play.

The story we use is called  Hudden and Dudden and Mc Donald

We had to modify the story a little bit:

Jack and John and McDonald

There were once upon a time two farmers named Jack and John. They had chickens in their gardens, sheep on the uplands, and lots of buffalos in the meadow-land alongside the river. But for all that they weren’t happy. Between the two farmers, Jack and John, there lived a poor man called Mc Donald. He owned only a small strip of land that was barely enough to keep his one buffalo, Daisy, from starving, and though it was seldom that Mc Donald got some milk from Daisy.

You would think that there was little here to make Jack and John jealous, but so it is, the more one has the more one wants. And so Mc Donald’s neighbors stayed up night after night thinking of how they might get hold of this little strip of land that belonged to Mc Donald.

One day, Jack met John and they were soon talking about how they could get Mc Donald out of the village.

“Lets kill Daisy” said John at last, “if that doesn’t make him leave, nothing will”.

As soon they had agreed, John and Jack crept up to the little shed where they found poor Daisy lying chewing a tiny bit of hay.

And when Mc Donald came to see Daisy in the evening, the poor animal had only time to lick his hand before she died.

Well, Mc Donald was a clever man and he began to think if he could get any good out of Daisy’s death. He thought and thought and the next day you could have seen him walking off early to the fair in the next town. Over his shoulder he carried Daisy’s hide and every penny he owned was jingling in his pockets.

Just before he got to the fair, he made several slits in the hide, put a penny in each slit and walked into the best restaurant of the town as bold as if it belonged to him. He hung the hide up to a nail in the wall and sat down.

“Some of your best drink” he said to the restaurant owner.

But the restaurant owner didn’t like the look of him.

”Do you think I will not pay you?” said Mc Donald “Don’t worry; I have a hide that gives me all the money I want.” And with that he hit the hide with a stick and out hopped a penny. The pub owner’s mouth dropped open.

“What will you take for that hide?”

It’s not for sale, my good man.”

“Will you take a gold piece?”

“It’s not or sale, I tell you. It has kept me and my family alive for years.” And with that Donald hit the hide another time and out jumped a second penny.

Well, to cut a long story short, Mc Donald sold the hide and walked home with several bars of gold.

That very evening John and Jack had dinner together at John’s place and when they saw the light going on at Mc Donald’s place they decided to visit their neighbour. How surprised were they when they came closer to Mc Donald’s farm and looked through his windows and saw him counting gold bars at his table. Without knocking at the door, they stormed into Mc Donald’s living room.

“Where did you get so much gold?” John and Jack asked simultaneously.

“Good-evening John, good-evening Jack. Ah! You thought you had ruined me, but you never did me a better favour  in all your lives. When I found poor Daisy dead, I thought to myself, ‘Well, her hide may be worse something’ and it was. Hides are worth their weight in gold at the market just now in the town.”

John nudged Jack and Jack winked at John.

“Good-evening, Mc Donald.”

“Good-evening, kind friends.”

The next day there wasn’t a single buffalo left on the field that belonged to John and Jack but instead their hides were going to the fair in John’s biggest cart drawn by John’s strongest pair of horses.

When they came to the fair, each one took a hide over their arm and they walked through the fair, bawling out of the top of their voices: “Hides to sell! Hides to sell!”

Out came a businessmen:

“How much for your hides, my good men?”

“Their weight in gold.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

That was all the businessman said, and back he went to his yard.

“Hides to sell! Fine fresh hides to sell!”

Out came the cobbler.

“How much for your hides, my men?”

“Their weight in gold”

“Are you making fun of me? Take that for your hides’” and the cobbler gave John a blow that made him stagger.

Now people came running from one end of the fair to the other.

“What’s the matter? What’s the matter?” they cried.

“Here are a couple of vagabonds selling hides at their weight in gold’” said the cobbler.

“Hold them; hold them!” screamed the restaurant owner, who was the last one coming up the street. He was just too fat to run.

“I will punish the one who tricked me yesterday! I gave him thirty gold pieces for a stupid hide.”

There were more kicks than pennies that John and Jack got before they were back on their way home again and they had to run because all the dogs of the town were at their heels. 

Well, as you can imagine, if John and Jack loved Mc Donald a little before, they loved him less now!

“What’s the matter, friends?” said Mc Donald when he saw John and Jack tearing along, their hats knocked in, and their coats torn off, and their faces black and blue. “Have you been fighting? Or maybe you met the police?”

“We’ll police you, you vagabond. It’s mighty smart you thought of yourself, deluding us with your lying tales.”

“Who deluded you?” Didn’t you see the gold with your own two eyes?”

But it was no use talking and he had to pay for his little trick to John and Jack. There was a sack lying next to Mc Donald’s entrance door and into it John and Jack popped Mc Donald. They tied him up, ran a pole through the knot, and off they went for the lake, each with a pole-end on their shoulder, and Mc Donald between.

But the lake was far, the road was dusty, John and Jack were sore and weary, and really thirsty. There was a tea house by the road side.

“Let’s go in’” said John; “I’m tired. This guy is heavy for the little he had to eat.”

If John was willing to go for a drink, so was Jack. As for Mc Donald, you may be sure his opinion wasn’t asked, but he was lumped down at the tea house door as if he had been a sack of potatoes.

“Still, you vagabond,” said John; “if we don’t mind to wait, neither should you.”

Mc Donald held his peace, but after a while he heard the glasses clink, and Jack singing away at the top of his voice.

“I won’t have her, I tell you; I won’t have he!” said Mc Donald.  But nobody noticed what he said.

“I won’t have her, I tell you; I won’t have her!” said Mc Donald, and this time he said it louder; but nobody noticed what he said.

“I won’t have her, I tell you; I won’t have her!” said Mc Donald; and this time he said it as loud as he could.

“And who won’t you have, may I be so bold to ask?” said a farmer, who had just come up with a herd of cows, and was turning in for a drink in the tea house.

“It’s the king’s daughter. They are forcing me to marry her.”

“You are a lucky man. I’d give something to be in your shoes.”

“Ah, wouldn’t it be a fine thing for a farmer to marry a princess, all dressed in gold and jewels?”

“Jewels, do you say? Ah, now, couldn’t you take me with you?”

“Well, you’re an honest man, and as I don’t care for the king’s daughter, though she is as beautiful as the day, and is covered with jewels from top to toe, you shall have her. Just undo the cord, and let me out; they tied me up, as they knew I’d run away from her.”

Out crawled Mc Donald; in crept the farmer.

“Now lie still, and don’t mind the shaking; you will only be rumbling over the palace steps. And maybe they will abuse you for a vagabond, who won’t have the king’s daughter, but you don’t need to mind that. Ah! It’s a deal I’m giving up for you because I don’t care for the princess. “

“Take my cows in exchange,” said the farmer; and you may guess it wasn’t long before Mc Donald was bringing the cows back to his home.

Out came John and Jack, and they took each one end of the pole.

“I’m thinking he’s heavier,” said Jack

 “Ah, never mind,” said John, “it’s only a short way now to the lake.”

“I’ll have her now! I’ll have her now!” screamed the farmer from inside the sack.

“By my faith, and you shall have her,” said John, and he laid his stick across the sack.

“I’ll have her! I’ll have her!” screamed the farmer, louder than ever.

“Well, here you are,” said Jack. They were now at the lake, and without untying the sack, they threw it into the lake.

“You’ll not play your tricks on us any longer,” said John.

Off they went, with a light step and easy heart, but when they were near their home whom did they see?! Mc Donald and all around him the cows grazing and the calves were kicking up their heels and butting their heads together.

“Is it you, Mc Donald?” said John. “Faith, you’ve been quicker than we have.”

“True for you, John, and let me thank you kindly; what you have done was good, even if the idea behind was not so nice. You’ll have heard, like me that the lake leads to the Land of Promises. I always put it down as lies, but it is as true as my word. Look at the cows.”

John starred, and Jack gaped; but they couldn’t get over the cows; fine fat cows were these.

“They are only the worst I could bring up with me,” said Mc Donald,”the others were too fat that I couldn’t bring them up. However, it’s a little wonder they didn’t care to leave, with grass as far as you can see, and as sweet and juicy as fresh butter.”

“Ah, now Mc Donald, we haven’t always been friends, said Jack, “but as I was just saying, you were always a nice guy, and you’ll show us the way won’t you?”

“I don’t think I can do this, there are many more cows down there. Why shouldn’t I have them all to myself?”

“Well, they say, the richer you get, the harder the heart. You always were a neighborly guy, Mc Donald. You wouldn’t wish to keep the luck all to yourself?”

“True for you, Jack, though you set a bad example to me. But I’ll not think of old times. There is plenty for all of us, so come along with me.”

Off they went, with a light heart and an eager step. When they came to the lake, the sky was full of little white clouds, and their reflections were seen on the lake surface.

“Ah! Now, look, there they are,” cried Mc Donald, as he pointed to the clouds in the lake.

“Where? Where?” cried John, and “Don’t be greedy!” cried Jack, and he jumped quickly to be the first with the fat cows. But when he jumped John wasn’t long behind him.

They never came back. Maybe they got too fat, like the cows. As for Mc Donald, he had cows and sheep and he met a lovely young woman whom he married and they lived a peaceful life together until they died. 

Before each lesson, we take the students out of their small classroom and do some exercise. This is often accompanied with lots of giggles but with time, almost all students participate now in our little dance exercise that includes some Bollywood movements (after seeing every evening Bollywood movies in the canteen during dinner time, you get really inspired!).

After this little warm up, we also have everyday a game that helps the students to improve acting. For example: we divide the class in two and each group gets a list of tasks such as perform an old man, a mother with a baby, a football player.., and the other half of the class needs to guess what the other group is performing. Also here lots of giggles!

After these two fun exercises we start the work on our theater play.

Over the 10 days, we first read the story to the students, ask them questions for understanding and then slowly go over each scene. The students get written or oral tasks  in which they rewrite the story into a play. Hopefully at the end they will perform the theater play.



Our school

Our school in Pokhara where we will stay for 3 months



The entrance are of our school

The canteen where we have our 5 meals per day: Breakfast 8:00, lunch 10:30, breakfastI 2:00, breakfast II 16:00, diner 20:00. These are the  names of the different meals given by the nepali teacher!



Canteen and kitchen entrance