JICA Volunteer's Essay (Mr. Hiroshi Kagotani)

I wanna practice!

 

I have been working at Melekeok Elementary School as a math teacher.
Today, I would like to tell you about my work.
 
There are about 100 students in my school and they are having a lively and active school life. Students study math every day, and of course, every student wants to do well in math. However, they still had a lot to improve. Let me show you some examples.
 2+5=25, 6-9=3, 6×8=42
This was not unusual, but it was a typical answer I got from Palauan students. Quite a few students had answers like this.
 
Why do we find such mistakes a lot? I guess the major reason was that students lacked practices. In order to improve these situations, I worked on two activities.
 
The first activity was to give students“homework”everyday, because the only way to improve the situation was for students to make steady efforts and to practice continuously. Therefore, I continued to give them homework everyday, and they gave it back to me the next day. What is more, sometimes students gave me something special, which was“extra homework”. Of course this was not my homework, but was a self-studied work by the students themselves. Sometimes, many students gave me extra homework, which surprised me, and I praised them a lot.
 
The second activity was “extra lessons”. For students who cannot understand everything in one lesson, I continued to do a lunchtime lesson and after-school lesson to teach them in addition.
 
By means of these activities, students improved their math understandings. Let me show you some of their achievements.
 

We are「Extra Homework」students!          Lunchtime Extra lesson!

 

 

Please look at the graphs. I implemented the Math Hero Test in August, January and May. Of course, at the beginning of the year, it was quite difficult for most of the students to solve questions. However, thanks to the everyday practice, by the end of the year, students improved their scores. I was deeply proud of them.
 
Those were my work at Melekeok Elementary School. To be honest, I was not sure whether I have been doing enough work to achieve my goals or not. Nevertheless, I hope my students would succeed in the Palauan society in the near future.
 
Two years have passed since I came to Palau. When I look back the past two years, so many memories come to my mind. On top of that, the most important feeling I have in mind is the word“PEACE”. As you know, in other countries, there are many students who have no freedom to go to school due to conflicts, civil wars or terrorism. However, in this country, there are none of those, and people have a quite peaceful mind. As a result, all children can go to school to receive enough education, which I think is amazing. Simply put, I just want to say“PEACE is necessary for education”. Furthermore, I wish such peace would last forever.
 
Finally, I hope to come back to Palau again. Thank you very much for everything you have given me. Sulang!