13th Year Mentors

Just a little background information before I get started.  During the last school year, shortly after we arrived in Fiji, the teachers that teach the year 9 students asked to have a meeting with Kim and I.  Of course we agreed.  They were very concerned about the number of students that they felt were reading way below grade level and because of it, they were not able to be successful in their classes.  At that time, I tested 12-15 students and the teachers were correct.  They were reading on a level anywhere from beginning first grade to 5th grade. Many of those reading at 4th and 5th grade levels could read accurately but had very little comprehension.  Part of this stems from English being their second language.

After testing the students we met with the teachers again and I gave them the information that I found.  The next question was, now what?  What do we do for these students? We talked about several options.  One of them was for me to teach these teachers some reading strategies that they could teach their students.  Another was for us to start a tutoring program with the 13th year students.  Teach and train students to tutor younger students who were below grade level.  By now, it's October.  To start a tutoring program would be fruitless since school is over mid November.   So, I started tutoring one student who couldn't read at all.  We couldn't come up with a time that I could train the teachers on what to do with these students who can't read so that was put on hold.  (I always felt bad that it never happened because to me that was the best option.  They need to know how they can help their students!)  We had a meeting with the 12th year students, those that would be 13th years the follow year, (at least those that were present. Many students stop coming  or come less often to school towards the end of the year because they have taken their year end tests and they don't see a need to be there.) We explained the tutoring idea to the students.   Kim did most of this.  He helped them to see that this would be a Christ-like service.  That they would be able to develop skills that could be helpful for them the remainder of their lives.  That this would help them when they become parents.  And that they may see that they like teaching and put their studies towards becoming an educator.   We gave them applications to sign up if they were interested.  There were about 15 students that signed up.

Once school got started again in January.  We worked with the councilor to find a time when these students would be available to do the tutoring.  It turned out that the majority of them had a study period together.  There were a few that had class during that time that prevented them from joining the tutoring program.  We changed the program to a mentoring program and I began teaching them the things they needed to know to help them tutor a student.  I taught them the early reading behaviors, reading strategies, how words work, how to take a running record, writing activities and strategies and how a tutoring lesson might work.  Then I had to teach them HOW to test the students.  This took about 4 weeks.  The teachers gave us 50 names of students they thought could benefit from the tutoring and we began testing.  For the first couple of days, it was pretty chaotic.  When you think you've taught, you find out there are things you miss or they didn't understand.  But after 2 weeks of testing we had figured out who the 12 students would be that would be tutored.  There were 3 students reading level B (end of kindergarten level), 3 students on 1st grade levels (E, G, J),  2 on a 2nd grade level and the rest were 3rd grade levels.  We got permission from parents to pull them out of class every day for 30 minutes.  The electrician teacher donated his room since he didn't have a class during the time we were going to tutor.  We were set and ready to go.

Once the students started coming, I realized again that there is just so much teaching the mentors needed that I obviously didn't teach well or they just didn't understand.  I was constantly giving them reminders and explaining things to them.  Then we had teachers that started to be concerned that the students were missing out on too much instruction time in class.  We had to make sure that those students were only tutored for 20 minutes.  We had about 2 successful weeks of tutoring (which we called mentoring) when the virus struck and schools were closed and the program was abruptly ended!  We can only hope that once we get back and running again, that the mentors will have retained their knowledge of reading and will be able to get back to tutoring these students.

Here's a few pictures of this amazing adventure and learning experience for all of us.  I sure grew to love these 12 students that were the mentors.  They are great great great kids.

 TRAINING BEGINS

 First training lesson complete.  These were the only mentors. Five more joined in the next day or two.  L to R: Adrian, Maira, AJ, Lani, Vanessa, Kasa and Samuel.

 TUTORING FINALLY BEGINS:

 Met with probably a year 7 student.

 AJ with a year 10 or 11 student.

 Melania with a year 12 student.

 Joseph with a year 10 student.  Maira behind doing some prep work.

 Lani doing some preliminary testing.

Adrian and Vanessa getting their binders ready.

 Just giving a little personal instruction and help to Adrian.

Nabuika (Bull) is here!  We invited all mentors to our flat for a reward pizza and movie night.

L to R: Bull, Joseph, Ama (Reama), AJ and Melania

 Vanessa, AJ and Ama.

Metui (Met) and Bull

Adrian, Ama, Joseph, Me, Melania, Vanessa, AJ, Bull and Met

Melania, Adrian and Ama

 Just a reminder that they really are just high school kids. 😂😂

 We had a great discussion about their dreams and future plans.

 Group Picture: Starting in the back and moving forward: 

Bull, Vanessa, Lani, Melania, Maira, Me

Joseph, Adrian, Ama, AJ 

Kasa and Met 

Kasa and Met are the head students at the school.  Kind of like being the student body president only there are 2-a female and a male.

 Time to go home.  One of the teachers came and picked them up in the school van.  The policy is if it's a school sponsored activity then it's the school's responsibility to make sure they get home. 

 The secretary took these 3 home in her car that was already full with her 3 children. But don't worry, "the police go to sleep so it's ok!" 😂😂😂

 Maira, Kasanita, and I can't remember her name. 

Kasanitais the head student (female student body president) and these are her assistants.  Two out of the 3 are mentors.  The girl on the right wanted to be a mentor but she had an accounting class at the same time of the mentoring class. 

 The male prefects being announced.  All 3 head prefects are mentors. This is Joseph and Adrian, both assistants and Met is on the stage after just being announced to be the Head Male Student.

The pinning of prefects is a big deal.  There are many students that are pinned prefects.  They all have different responsibilities in helping with the school.  Here are the head prefects with their assistants with Elder and Sister Johansson, area authority.  They were the guest speakers.  

Adrian, Joseph, Metui, Elder Adolf Johansson, Sister Martha Johansson, Kasanita, LaMaira, and ??. This shows you the caliber the mentor students are.  They are wonderful young men and women.

The last day we were at the school, we cleaned up our office and put everything away just in case we don't return.  Then we handed out the pins we had for the mentors and their students.  They were to receive them after teaching 20 lessons.  I'm so sad that they never had the opportunity to complete the program.  They were just getting the hang of it.  Samuel was so proud to get his pin. 😃