Nancy Muthami

Nancy Muthami

Title:  teacher

Subject: Standard 6,7,8

Hometown:  Machakos, Kenya

Bio:

Kikamba is her first language.  She is from the Kamba group of people.  She is very far from home, but is used to being in NW now.  At first, it was very hard to be so far away from her family.  She feels that NW is a much harsher environment, as the climate and vegetation are different from Machokos.

Career:

The education system can be difficult to navigate for those students who do not have the perfect grades and/or funding for school.  Nancy originally did not want to be a teacher.  She didn’t have the grades to make it into a four-year university and then when she did make the grades to go into a medical training program, her parents could not afford it.  Teacher training college (a two year program) was her best option at the time.

This is Nancy’s fourth year as a teacher.   She started her teaching career at NWPS in 2008.  When she began, she taught standard 5 and 8.    She now teaches standard 6,7,8.  She particularly likes teaching science, mathematics, and Swahili.

“There is no specialization, but I like science very much.  It is my favorite.  I also teach mathematics and Swahili.”  -Nancy

Q&A:

What made you want to be a teacher?

“I did not want to be a teacher.  I found myself a teacher, but I did not want to be a teacher. I was told to become a teacher by my father. You find that the grades in our country to go to the university are very high.  I was almost there.  So the only thing that they could afford was taking me to a training college to become a teacher.

At the moment I found myself there, it’s like now it’s in my heart.”

It took some time for Nancy to learn to love teaching while at the teacher’s training college.  She seemed to accept her fate and learned to love teaching while doing her student teaching.

What was your first day of teaching like?

Nancy seemed to express that she was confident when she began her first day of teaching.  She referenced that during her teacher training classes, she often taught her peers rather than children.  When she finally had children as her students, she felt relieved.

“Slowly by slowly I gained courage.  The first time I was not nervous. Children are very small. I was used to teaching teachers.  It was so good.  I enjoyed it.”

Is there anything that you would like to know about the teachers at our school?

Nancy hopes to exchange ideas and challenges and hopefully learn from one another.

“Yes.  I would like to have some new experiences from them.  Maybe they can share some of the experiences and challenges.  From there we can get some ideas and apply them.”

What do you feel like your biggest challenge is?

Nancy feels like her biggest challenge is teaching classes of students with a wide range of ages.  She feels that sometimes their background experiences can negatively impact their learning.  She sited an example of teaching about the period of adolescence during science class.  Nancy felt that because some of the students were older and had already begun adolescence, that they were bored.

Are there any resources that you feel like that you could really use?

Nancy expressed that their extreme lack of science materials only allows for teachers to do demonstrations rather than the students.  Also, the materials are shared school wide.  She references the difficulty with teaching geometry with very little tools.

Is there anything that you like or dislike about teaching?

Nancy really likes the exchange of ideas that is generated from working with people.

“Compared to the other professions, I like that I am interacting with people.  You can get ideas from them.”

Nancy doesn’t like teaching difficult children.

Click here to listen to the interview.