It’s crazy to think that we’ve been here for 3 weeks. And that we only have 3 classes left! Due to a small change in schedule we had to squish the 2 classes we had scheduled for next week into this week. So we’ll be having 5 classes in the span of the next 3 days.
Overall it’s been such an incredible opportunity so far. I’ve learned so many things through this experience. I have gained a great deal of respect for our professor who stand at the front of our sections each class to teach. While I don’t have the same educational experience they do to help me understand all the material, I am realizing that it is more difficult than it looks. Our students are incredibly gracious when I’m halfway through a sentence and forget what I was going to say. Or when I can’t write on the board and talk at the same time. Or when I misunderstand what they are trying to say. I can only imagine how challenging it is for professors when you get 75 bright students at Ivey all vying for the top contribution for the day.
I’ve also learned a lot about the teacher/student relationship. Every culture has a different idea of what this relationship looks like. Here, professors don’t interact with their students outside of class. Since we’re the same age and wanting to experience more than just hanging out with the professors we worked hard to build a relationship with our students. So far it’s been great. It definitely took a little while and some encouragement to get the students to talk after class. But soon enough we were going out to lunch before class or getting coffee after class together. They showed us some of the best places to hang out. They spent their weekend showing us the best place to hang out (there was an amazing food festival happening that we would have missed out on if it wasn’t for them). Getting to know the students has definitely been a highlight of our time here. It’s going to be sad to say goodbye at the end of next week.
But between now and then we’ve got a few more lessons and an incredible trip to the mountains planned.
That’s all for now.
Emma – Team Ethiopia