Alisi

CP and I decided that we would each assign ourselves two or three slow-learning kids that we thought needed attention and focus on them for an entire week. You must know that the aim of the Think Pacific charity is to provide one-to-one support for ‘slow learners’ rather than to lead a whole class.

'I know its hard,' Leah would say, 'when a teacher leaves the class all on their own, but just continue what you’re doing and try to focus on your individual kids.'

And so, we identified our slow learners and got to work.

Now, you may think that setting up a table with the smartest kid in class was entirely antithetical to those instructions. However, as a Year 4 child, Alisi was naturally advanced in the Year 3 exercises, but had no understanding of work that was expected of her age. Leah and Ferg had folders detailing the literary and mathematical standards associated with each year group, and I took Alisi through each question step by step, identify which aspects of Maths she could do and which she couldn’t. Little did I know what to expect but sadly, she knew very little.

Alisi therefore, became my own personal project. I took her outside every day, with a school desk and a couple of chairs set in the shade, and pinned the paperwork down with my fist against hot blasts of Fijian air.

In her school-book, with teachers' ticks aplenty, she had drawn lovely large circular clocks under the title ‘Time’ and answers next to them. With a whiteboard, I drew a quick clock and she identified the time: ‘Five o’clock.’ Great!

Then I drew another circle, half-past seven. Nothing. Quarter-past ten. Nothing.

Right.

‘Ok, the hand is pointing half-way down the clock. What is half of twelve?’

She but her lip and squirmed.

I wrote: 12 ÷ 2, on the board, handed the pen to her and waited.

‘What does it mean if I divide something?’

She giggled shyly and shrugged.

I stood up, took a pack of coloured sticks from our Think Pacific Resources Box and set them out on the table.

‘Find me four red sticks.’

She did.

‘Now give me half of those sticks.’

I could see the struggle behind her eyes.

‘If you give me half of those sticks, then I will have the same amount in my hand as you have in your hand. How many is that?’

I helped her with the first lot, and asked a her a series of similar questions which she quickly got the hang of.

‘Lovely. You’re really getting this Alisi. So now take twelve green sticks, and give me half.’

She did.

‘Right, so now, what is half of twelve?’

‘Six’

I pointed to the clock that had long since been discarded. ‘Now draw a line to where half of twelve is on this clock.’

With a slow and precise hand, she did. I almost leaped with joy.

‘Amazing! So that is half-past seven, do you see?’

She nodded.

‘Ok, say it for me.’

‘Half-past seven.’

Good.

And so we spent the rest of our session doing division sums and time-clocks on the board. Though it was very rewarding, I didn’t feel the strength to go into quarter-pasts and ten-to’s yet.

The next day, I identified questions in her book that she had answered correctly: “Measure the perimeter of this shape,” and I thought this to be particularly impressive for a girl who had only recently learned to tell the time. It was a simple rectangle labelled one side 3cm and one side 2cm. Suspiciously, I asked her to show me how to work one out and, without assistance she wrote: 3cm + 2cm + 3cm + 2cm = 10cm.

‘Well done!’ I said. Perhaps this wasn’t going to be so hard after all.

The next question said: “Measure this line.”

I breathed out, thinking, 'Well this one's easy.' She took out a ruler, placed it on the line, starting at 1cm, and began to measure.

‘Ah. Right.' I paused her. 'So, when we measure something Alisi, we always start with the ruler at zero. Like this.’

I showed her where to place the ruler and she did the same for the next few.

Good. Problem fixed.

The next question was exactly the same, except, instead of having the line finish cleanly on 7cm or 8cm, it was 7.7cm.

‘Seven!’ she said.

‘No, no,’ I said. ‘Look again.’

‘Eight.’

‘No. Look. How many millimetres are there after seven?’

She rubbed her head and gazed confusedly at the paper.

‘What is a millimetre?’

She lifted her fingers to her mouth and smiled bashfully. She didn’t know.

I tried to let this sink in. Alright, so, she was learning how to work out the perimeters of shapes without first knowing the difference between millimetres and centimetres? We spent the rest of the session measuring lines, identifying millimetres and centimetres and even delving into the concept of decimals and metres. She was a very diligent child, keen to learn and also quick to remember new things I had taught her. I would be happy to invest time in her completely.

The next day we went over both measurements and ‘time’ to see that it all stuck… it hadn’t, but we soon got it back with a few reminders. It was a tedious, repetitive week, but every time she learnt something, it inflamed my heart and I vowed to teach this child everything I could in the short time that we had on project. If she was being neglected in class, then I was going to give her all the attention she needed

to bring her skills up to standard and flex her true intellectual capabilities.