[The thoughts and information below were specifically written for my former teaching partner Erika Juntunen...who is an amazing teacher and dear friend! I have included these notes in my blog as some of you may find them interesting.]
Hopeland Preschool Teacher Jeanine (Burundian), Teacher Janet, Teacher Rose (sick with malaria)…3 helpers: 2 local women and one American DTS student…and me.
There were around 39 children in total registered at the preschool, but the maximum while I was there was 35. The preschool was to serve the families of those in YWAM, and the families that were under the care of YWAM families, but the invitation was extended out into the local village as many of these young kids couldn’t afford to go to school. To give you a feel of their family situations: Of the six children that were in the highest class, 4 were orphans (an orphan in this country can also mean a single parent home) and 1 had both parents fighting aids.
The school house was 3 rooms, one large and one small teaching room & one small office (basically included a desk and some shelves with broken toys). To be entered from the outside was a covered cement eating area and two loo stalls with holes in the ground. Near the stalls was an outside sink so children could wash hands! Pee was often all over the floor so shoes were required to be worn. Shoes, due to dirt and mud were not worn in the classroom but kept in piles outside. There was no electricity in the building, but as school was in morning there was not a problem for light.
Basic Schedule
8:00-8:30 – Children begin to arrive and those that are there early can play with “projects” which were games, puzzles or books. These were played on the cement floor on top of pieces of fabric, as there are no available tables.
8:30-9:30 (or 10:00) – School starts and kids clean up their projects they are playing with. Then kids form a large circle in the class room for “Circle Time”. During this time the children: sing welcome songs, do the calendar & the weather, sing some worship songs, and then have bible time and a lesson.
10:00-11:00 – Children then break up into their appropriate class. There are three classes, Top Class (5 to 6 years?) – Middle Class (4 to 6 years?) – Baby Class (3yrs to 5yrs?). There is a wide range of the ages per class as it really depends on the individual academic level of the child. It was strange to have a 5 year old in the “Baby Class”! Here in their groups they do pure academic work: alphabet, counting, etc. Other than recess outside, there is no free play inside.
11:00-11:30 – Recess Outside…there was a slide and a few swings out front.
11:30-12:00 – Snack is served in the back covered patio area. One day the children had sugared tea and biscuits (plain cookies) and the other day hot porridge. For many children this was the first meal of their day. About a third of the children brought a packed lunch which they ate at this time as well…the children with food were pretty good about sharing with others.
12:00-12:30 – The Top Class returns to their room and continues with academic study and the other two classes meet in the large classroom in a circle and do corporate teaching and songs.
12:30 – Children go home. A few are picked up in a car, others on the end of a motorbike (one day I saw the assistant teacher and 3 children getting a ride!) and the others walk.
Personal Observations
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Prayer:Kids are taught to pray out loud and on their own. Sometimes the teacher would call on a specific child to pray or she would ask all the children to pray out loud simultaneously. It was so sweet to see these little ones all shut their eyes and pray…not hesitating or looking around. Their prayers would last a few minutes too…not just a one line.
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Discipline:
Often times it was done in public, in front of the other children…to be a warning to them.
One example I saw was when a boy was not giving fellow students hugs when the kids were told to hug each other in the morning. The teacher kept giving him a chance to obey and hug someone but he stood still in quite defiance. She kept telling him, “Are you going to listen to the Devil or are you going to listen to Jesus”. Still not budging he was sent to another room to put his face against the wall. Other types of discipline…face towards the floor with body spread out (this was in the center of the circle)…face in a corner…or slapped with thin sticks or slapped on the hand. Later the boy publicly apologized in class and hugged a fellow classmate when told to do so.
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Asking Questions:When children were asked a question during circle they would have to stand and reply in a full sentence. If questions were answered correctly they either: gave a nearby teacher a high five, gave the main teacher a hug, or given a cheer dance and clap by the class. Questions that were daily asked the students at circle:
How many days to we go to school? 5
How many days to we stay at home? 2
How many months in a year? 12
How many hours in a day? 24
What month is it? July
What number is this month? 7
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Songs:
Welcome Song- “We are happy to see you teacher, teacher” x2
Weather Song- “It’s a ‘cloudy’(insert weather) day and I thank God for the weather”
Bible Song- “The bible is the word of God”
ABC Song- a little different from ours
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School Supplies:
There were no copy machines available for the teachers to use so they, or a helper, would spend much of the class time copying a worksheet into their work books. I noticed that in the Top Class, the teacher there had carbon copy paper that she would use, but I think it was limited. Each child had their own notebook with all their work in it. In Uganda children are meant to bring their own supplies before the school year begins. Pencils were not sharp and erasers were scarce so often a whole class would have to share one eraser if mistakes were made.
Biblical Issues
Spiritual Warfare: This is taught very black and white to the kids. They learn the basic truth that they are either listening to the devil or to Jesus. Sometimes when a child was being shy to answer and was shut down or being disobedient…they teacher would say, “The devil is making you do that…do you love Jesus?...will you do what he says?”
Listening to the Lord: One activity the teacher did with the children was have them individually pray and ask the Lord to speak to them and then they had to share what they heard. Kids that didn’t say what they heard or said something inappropriate (this happen to one girl who said something like Jesus told her to hit people??...the teacher responded… “you have listened to the devil...try again”.)
Praying for the sick: Children were told by their teacher that when their parents were sick and not feeling good (as the reality was many of these kids has parents dying of aids) that they could pray for them…also when parents were sad and had a ‘sick heart’. Jesus could help them. The teacher shared how she had been having bad dreams and asked they children to pray for her…they circled around her and laid hands on her. This was practically showing the kids how they could pray for adults.
Forgiveness: The lesson that morning was about how God knows everything we do, even things done in secret. The teacher asked if any of the children want to admit anything they have done so that God can forgive them. One little boy (I love his honesty and desire to talk about potty talk)…admitted that he and a friend had su-sued outside. Su-Su means to pee here. The teacher addressed this publicly and reminded the children that they were not allowed to su-su outside or even from a tree (!)…but only in the loo. These two children had to publicly ask forgiveness in front of the class and tell their classmates that they wouldn’t do it again. It was simple, yet powerful. Then the teacher gave them a hug for confessing their sins and the class said “We forgive you”.
The Bible: Before the bible lesson each morning, a song is sung and the bible is passed around in the entire circle from hand to hand…sometimes this took awhile to get through 40 hands…but what I saw was it taught the children that the bible was a sacred and special book! Then the teacher would ask these questions and these were the children’s response:
What is the Bible? – “It is the word of God”
What does the Bible tell us? – “It tells us how God made us and love us”
Questions?
-In learning the alphabet here children are first taught to recognize the lower case letters. Then in the Middle and Top classes they work on identifying the Upper Case letters. I noticed this was bit tricky for them. It’s the opposite in the States as at a young age children are first familiar with the upper case alphabet.
-There was no practice on the sounds that letters make. I noticed this immediately as we stress it so much with our preschoolers in the states. There isn’t much pre-reading skills established. Perhaps they learn to read much later? Also there were no books that were read to the kids throughout the day. There was a so-called library with a few dozen old picture books…but the children just looked at the pictures and when I tried to read to them they couldn’t focus.
This is the main school house
Their calender and weather chart
Half of the classroom-we sat on this floor for circle
Precious Children...full of joy!
A rainbow over the city! What an incredible photographic experience! 
I wonder what business or home is sitting under the end of that rainbow? 
Enjoying a full moom from signal hill 
A georgeous sunset from our home! Love the view?! 
Cape Point on a sunny day in winter!
(I’m used to these being a preschool teacher myself) and ate maize, which is a staple food item here in Uganda…it looks like sweet corn but is hard and is burned on a fire. You have to take your nails and pick off the kernels…I thought it tasted like popcorn kernels without salt or butter. We also ate hard boiled eggs and drank bottled coke. While we sat I asked her about Burundi, the country she is from. She went on to tell me about the deaths of her parents. That they died in the war. Her mother was murdered in bed alongside her 3 year old brother who survived. She was not at home during the killings but at boarding school with 2 other siblings. It was her older sister who broke the news of her mother’s death to her and she screamed in anguish for days. She loved her mother and the week prior had been very homesick and wanting to see her mom. 
I never quite heard what happened to her father. Once she was finished with school she heard about an opportunity to study in Uganda. It was an amazing deal as there was a sponsorship for the education coving the funds, but all Jeanine would have to provide was $300. This was an enormous amount of money but she said it miraculously came in. However once she paid the money and arrived to Uganda she found out the whole thing was a scam! She wasn’t bitter as she says that is what got her to Uganda. Once here she somehow got connected with those in YWAM. She did the DTS and was also able to do training at another school to be a teacher. She eventually married a Ugandan pastor. I met him briefly. He is in charge of 13 small churches. They live on faith as I don’t think the churches provide enough to support their family. Jeanine is the main teacher of the YWAM school, they get a little money from this but it mainly goes towards other school fees. They have 2 children of their own and one on the way, due next month. Jeanine’s 13 year old brother also lives with them (this is the one who was in bed with his mom when she was killed). 
They have just started a bead making business. They make necklaces and bracelets that they try and sell at the market to make some money on the side. They following day I went to see where they make these and bought a few to take home…it was such a blessing to support her. They have a small flat on the YWAM base. Normally both the husband and wife need to be on YWAM staff to be able to live there, but they have made an exception because she is the head teacher.
