rules of division

Strandfontein, South Africa
This week we are volunteering at local primary schools. My group is at Strandfontien primary school, which has 800 students from grade one to seven.
At first I was not looking forward to this week, I can't really explain why, other than I am getting tired. But being here has been a great week for me.
I am stationed in one of the grade six classes, with 35 students. The teacher I am working with has been glad to hand me any extra marking and administrative tasks that she may have to accomplish. Over the week, the piles on her desk have gotten smaller and my skills with the red marking pen have increased.
For me it's been a good reminder of how much I enjoy being in a classroom setting. And has actually come at a great time as I am in the midst of further negotiations about going back to school next year to begin the journey to becoming a teacher in a university setting. It seems as though there are some minor complications with my application process, but only things that will take time to overcome... time that I have and am willing to devote to further education. And again this week has made me realize that I need to care more about the students and the relationships rather than what it is I teach.
Here we are outside for a school assembly
Just yesterday most of the class was outside for an assembly for a play(the joys of South African climate allow for outdoor activities all year round). I stayed back in the classroom with those who had not paid to go the play, and we worked on math homework. It turned out many of them had not been able to understand the lesson and were struggling with their homework. Now, I have a special spot in my heart for anyone who does not understand and love math, as I too was once a fearful grade six student with little math skill and was often frustrated to the point of tears.
The topic of the day was "rules of division" and so through a song a dance I did my best to teach the students.
"If we have 10 notebooks and make 2 even piles how many notebooks will be in each pile?... and with how many remainders...???" "Any number can be divide by 2 if it ends with an even number... any number can be divided by 5 if it end with five or zero... any number can be divided by 10 if it ends with one zero..."
And so there I stood at the front of the room dancing around like a complete fool, but maybe they'll actually remember that weird Canadian girl who tried to make math make sense that one day in grade six.
At the end of the day one girl sheepishly approached me and handed me a folded piece of line paper. On it in pencil-written-grade-six-font-writing was the following note:
Dear Miss Dana. I want to thank you for coming to South Africa from Canada. You are the best. I love you miss Dana".
And if that doesn't melt your heart, I don't know what will. This week has again been such a powerful reminder that relationships and the people we meet in our lives really are important. Even if we are only teaching the rule for division.