Clay Woman

If anyone still comes to this site, I just wanted to let you know I'm using a new blog page now. Come read about my journey as a wife and mother.

Kenyan Education System

For my class I had to post and give an overview of an article on another country's education system and I found this and thought I'd share the grim details with more people than my class mates. It kills me as I read and wrote this to think of all my students sitting inside our classrooms not taking advantage of the free gift of education they have! Anyway, here was my post in the class discussion board:

I knew right away what country I wanted to write about since I taught there for 2 years, but I found it difficult to find a useful web link on the subject of the Kenyan Education system. But I finally found this pdf file that has some good information about it. Here's the link and my summary is below:




Kenyan Education Ministry




This article points out that in 2003 the new government began to try to implement free primary education to all children. I know this was a big deal because I taught first year secondary students in 2001-2003 and many of them were almost my age (I was 21 when I stated there) because they had to sit out of school several years to save money to go back and then they would sit out a year and then go back... Anyway, about the article. Some of the highlights of problems they found in this study were the nomadic people in different regions who were unable to attend school regularly and therefore not able to continue an education. There is also not any set way to reach students with disabilities. "Over 90 percent of handicapped children are either at home or in regular schools with little or no specialized assistance" (page 6). In order to try to reach more students they are starting more boarding schools and feeding programs (p. 7). They do have a national curriculum and in 2003 they reduced the number of examinable subjects (p. 8). Now students only have to take 8 cumulative exams at the end of their secondary schooling. From my experience, I was given a book and told that the students who tested in Computer Science needed to know the content of that book by their fourth year. The material in the book was the curriculum. Talk about stress! This change in decreasing the number of tests was to relieve the teachers as well as students (p. 8). At the Secondary level, at the time of this document, 2.8 million children between the ages of 14 and 17 were not enrolled in schools! In 1999 a population census found that there are 4.2 million illiterate adults in Kenya (p. 10). 61% of those are women (p. 11). Since many do not continue in their education, there is a focus on teaching life skills and how to contribute to the "well being of society"(p. 11). As they seek to offer education to all, they see two different groups - those who will continue in education and those whose primary schooling (or any stage) is "terminal," meaning that is all they will get (p. 13). Kenya lacks well trained teachers. Not only are there not good ways to prepare as a teacher, many teachers ended up as teachers because it was their last resort (p. 20). Those training the future teachers are not even well trained themselves (p. 20)!



Wow, this article sure paints a dim picture for their national education system. What a mess! Maybe we should all go to Kenya and teach teachers how to teach effectively.

Birthday Reflection

So today was my birthday. I think this may be the best birthday yet. I think it's the case for many reasons. For one, I was able to spend it with my incredible husband. Last year my birthday was on a Wednesday so being the wife of a youth minister means celebrating on a different day if you're b-day is on a Wednesday. But even if I had, last year on my birthday my first class of the day erupted and yelled at me for the last 4 minutes of class because I wouldn't let them use their review sheet on their upcoming test. They yelled things like, "you need to go back to Africa!" And "This is Bryan Station, not Dunbar" and who knows what else. It was so sad for me to see a class think so little of themselves. However, though it was a rough start, that class later turned out to be one of my best classes. One of the strong voices in the riot ended up getting one of the highest grades in his class. But at the time, it was not a "happy" way to start any day, let alone my birthday. Nick sent me flowers to school last year. I had never needed flowers more on any day of my life! But still, every moment I got, I caught myself replaying the yelling of my class. It was still great to have a husband to celebrate with and I had a good day, when I take out the first class of the day.

But this year my birthday was super! The day starts with my sweet sleepy husband telling me Happy Birthday. Today my first class of the day was really good. I had someone come in to observe them and I felt like they all were participating for the most part, so that was nice. Then one of the students I had last year (who graduated) came in to see me and I told him my plan was next hour. He said he'd come back. So he did and he told me he wanted to come see me before he left for his training for the Army. He starts training on Monday. I felt so special that he wanted to come talk to me before he left! Then another student I had last year came to see if I could help her with her current math class. Again, I was honored that she'd come to me for help. Then I saw a third student from last year that hugged me when she saw me. It's so rewarding to me to experience days like today. It makes all those rotten moments of "being the bad guy" trying to teach my kids to be respectful, to teach them math, to show them what they are really capable of doing. The kids I teach are so capable. Many of them just are not blessed with enough people to tell them that. I'm so glad I have people praying for me as I try to work with them. Anyway, bottom line: Today was a good day at school.

Then I came home and Nick had gifts for me. He had flowers for me. Then he had our car cleaned inside and out. Boy did it need to be cleaned! Then he had three gift bags for me. He got me a tickler file to help us get organized, "Shopping for Time" a book that I think will be very beneficial to me, a bag of Reese pieces and then... are you ready?! He got us a Wii!! He also got me another game/remote combo. So now we can play and exercise at home. We also went to iHop for dinner. I ate my entire omelet and 2 pancakes! Now we're home playing with our Wii. What a great day! Thank you Lord for such a great husband to celebrate another year of my life with.

Cool Bookmarks!

So today Nick and I joined a group from church to pass out popsicles at a local park. It was amazing how quickly they melt! I enjoyed the different reactions we got. My favorite was the last couple we offered them to at one of our stops. Nick asked them if they would like a free popsicle and the lady was saying, "No thanks" while her husband jumped in (sort of at the same time) and said, "Sure." So while he is selecting his flavor, the lady says, "yeah, thanks" and sort of tried to pretend she never said no. It was funny.

Another thing... one little boy came back up to me and gave me a bookmark. He said his grandfather told him to give it to me. Anyway, here's a picture of the bookmark.

What a neat idea! I'd like to get some of the bookmarks. I've e-mailed the address on the site to ask where I can get them. This bookmark can be watered and wild flowers will sprout! I'm torn between keeping it, watering it, or passing it on.

Free Address Labels

Actually, you have to pay just under $5 shipping but you get 300 address labels with up to 5 lines and you can choose white, clear or gold labels. It's a pretty good deal if you need labels. We used them for our labels for wedding invitations and I used this company to print labels for my Pampered Chef business and now for our new address!! Just thought I'd pass this reliable link on. Click on free stuff on the main page to get the free labels.

Thanks for your votes!

Our students won first place for Peoples Choice Award.!!!! It will not be shown on Mtv but they were the only ones asked to perform their song! Congratulations to them and thank you for voting!!

Princess Party

If any of you know any middle or high school girls, you need to invite them to the Princess Party we're having at Immanuel Baptist Church. Here's some of the details:

Your Heavenly Father and your King

requests the honor of your presence

at a Princess Party

given

for His daughters

on Friday, the sixteenth of March

at six o'clock in the evening

Immanuel Baptist Church

Lexington, Kentucky

The cost is $10 and it includes:
Formal dinner in honour of the princesses (formal or semi-formal dress)
Sleepover with movies and games
Workshops on Saturday with sessions including:
Skin Care by Sara Turco, Mary Kay Consultant
-Healthy Eating by Erin Sills, RD, LD (Registered Dietitien and Licensed Dietitian)
-Eating Disorders led by Emily Luckett (nurse)
-Sex and your body led by Gretchen Watson, marriage and family therapist.
Proverbs 31 woman
Finding your prince
Modesty and fashion
The College Transition
Preparing for HS
and more!

There will also be a session for Fathers of The Princesses at 11 am on Saturday. The event will begin at 6 PM on Friday, March 16th and end at noon on Saturday, March 17th.

Vote

One of my students created the video, "Life Is Short. Why give it away?" Please go and vote!! You can vote from now until Jan. 18th. Pass it on!
Grand Prize winner: $200 and video aired regionally on MTV, ESPN, Comedy Central and other channels. Other winners: $150.

Heaven's Gain

Yesterday afternoon my step-grandfather, "Jack" left this earth to see Jesus face to face. What an inspiration he was to me and many others! And what a legacy he left behind. Almost everytime I spoke with him he talked about how proud he was to see his grandchildren serving the Lord. One of his granddaughters has been serving at Caswell. Another an intern at a church (who also worked at camp Caswell in the past) and me working overseas, with internationals, and with the youth at our church. Tonight at my life enrich group we were learning about the "Law of Legacy" in the "Laws of Leadership." I shed a few tears as I thought about Jack. He and my granny had both lost their first spouse and several years later they met and married. I still remember the first time I spent the night at their house. I was sleeping on the couch and I heard him praying for them before they went to bed. They were sleeping in different beds due to my granny's health, but he went and tucked her in and prayed with her before he went to his own bed to sleep. It was so precious. I began praying that I would have a husband like that some day. Someone who would tuck me in and pray with me. God is so good!

Anyway, this has got me thinking a lot. First I was reminded of a Bible study from Pastor Craig a while back talking about how as believers we do not mourn as those who have no hope because we have hope. I'm praying that this can be a testimony to my dad and step mom and others who do not have this same hope that I have and are not able to rejoice becuase of the assurance of heaven.

Secondly, I was thinking about all of this in light of Deuteronomy 5:9, 10:

"You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments."

It has been my prayer for years that I would not pass on punishment to my future family but that I would be able to obey His commandments and that God would show His love for a thousand generations. I think my family has dealt with some generational sins and I am thankful that GOd has brought me out of that and He will help me to obey Him and walk with Him. I also realized that many of my students are living in that cycle. Pray that they will know Christ and obey Him and break the cycle of sin in their family too.

Well, It's bed time for me now. Too much thinking! Pray for my family this week. My brother has been struggling a lot and he decided that he cannot handle a funeral right now. Pray for him.

I'm not lost...

... but I'll soon be covered in papers! This past week the math department had a meeting. During this meeting we were given a new plan for how to do our classes. Our student's math scores are not up to par, so we're "trying something new." Now we must grade every problem we assign for homework for accuracy and give "more feedback" to our students. In addition, we need to have an "exit slip" in which the students have to answer a problem or two to test and see if they understood the day's lesson. Now, I must say that while I can see the benefit in some of my classes of collecting homework and grading it (I think I have 2 or 3 classes where the students may not feel comfortable asking a question b/c of the behavior of their peers). But I feel like with math, they need more practice than I can grade! One of the other teachers asked about assigning 20 problems and grading 5 of them and we were told, "If the student understands how to do 3 of them, why should they do 20?"

So, I want to take a poll. I know many of my readers may be "math minded" and if you leave a comment and vote, let me know if you consider yourself a math person or not. Do you think students need to do more problems than a teacher can grade or do you think limiting the homework to an amount that I am capable of grading is a better option? Or do you have other suggestions. Again, let me know if you like math or not. And if you do, do you want a job grading papers?!?

Getting into the grove

I think my classroom is finally starting to run smoothly. It's taken my kids a while to learn my classroom procedures, but they're getting there! Now I can focus more time and energy on teaching! Yeah!