Blogging in March

This weeks was working with a small class doing remedial work and found that one child could not recognize the letters of the alphabet. Was able this time to set the others on a project giving me time with Margaret. We worked for most of the period on the first five letters, writing them and saying their names and then trying to identify them. We seemed to be making progress and had fallen into a routine that was giving her, I thought, some confidence. But then the period ended. I mentioned to her teacher what I had done and if she had others, I had a free period when I was available.

Next time Margaret and Webster came, just the two. We worked together, Webster was moving along and making good progress. Margaret seemed worse than when we first started. Got Webster to where he could work by himself without a lot of help and concentrated on Margaret again. By the end of the period, I was convinced that Margaret had problems identifying letter symbols. So I tried numbers and she had no problems what so ever. I have not given up on Margaret, not really sure as to how to continue.

We start with 'a' and say the letter and write the letter and repeat, several times. She now id's 'a' with no problem. Next we do 'b' and she has no problems, 'c' the same. About the time we get to 'd', we do a little review starting with 'a'. The real problem each time come with the letter 'e'. Which she most often calls 'g'. Came to me that a poorly written g and e can look similar if you reverse them laterally. Anyway, no amount of repetition of saying/writing seems to cement it in her memory. She can write her name, so since it contains an 'e' I thought maybe we can learn it, by learning the names of the letters in her name. Didn't work. So I am low on ideas and open to suggestions. Not sure if this blog has response capabilities. My email address is samuuman@yahoo.com. Thanks for your help.

Did a special class of 7th Grade on Charles Darwin/Evolution and 200th ann. of his birth, 150th ann. of his "On the Origins of Species". Very handy was the Sci. American purchased in Ithaca Airport just before leaving. That seems a long time and way away.

In science class were dissected a flower and identified and labeled the parts. It was not easy to find suitable local flowers for the class. Current local flowers are small or large composites. But my eye wondered to our garden flowers... There were large, 7 inch long white funnel-shaped blossoms in some numbers (I needed 24). Discreat inquires seemed to indicate that no one felt 'close' to them or might even notice they were missing. They worked wonderfully, easy to take apart and the parts were easy to see and draw. Kathe had told me they were Moonflowers, ala Georgia Okeeffe. The only problem is that I told the kids that a blossom should tell us something about the pollinators since that is partly what they are for. None asked me about this particular flower, but I have wondered. White, heavy sweet odor, could it be night blooming and bat pollination? Couldn't determine time of blossoming, blossoms were there in all stages. Moonflowers are supposed to be vine like plants, ours are low bushes and the flowers are at ground level, some are even on the ground and partially eatten by the ants(??). Any help out there, see email address above.

On trips into town one always sees many pedestrian carrying things, not always what you might expect. Large pieces of furniture are walking into Lusaka. From a distance they look much like Disney characters from Beauty and the Beast. A large bookcase seems to have its own legs as it is braced against someone's back. Yesterday, I was surprised to see a large bed rolling sideways down the edge of the road. As we drew near, I could see it was balance across a wheelbarrow. One would think that car-furniture accidents would be common. Saturday we witnessed a car-bicycle accident, almost no damage to the rider, wouldn't have given much for the bike.

Last night after dinner, I was persuaded to stay for Zambia-Tanzania Soccer match on TV. However, Zambian TV uses ads to fill in the space between broadcasts. They don't have many ads so after what seemed like a half hour of the same 3 ads over and over, I opted to go home and to bed. About 11 pm a loud cheer went up from all six houses. Took me a few seconds to figure out the source and reason for the sound. The outcome of the soccer match must have been good for Zambian.

It may be football to you, but its soccer to me. Anyone remember Laugh-In?
Blog pressing out of Africa,
Sam