Getting in the Groove

Thursday, July 19, 2012

My first day at the school had been enjoyable and enlightening, but I was also eager to actually teach.  Bring on Thursday!  Breakfast of chapati, banana, toast, and porridge (fairly typical) was followed by our standard morning meeting and the reading of our team journal.  During that meeting, Edward told us about a ship in Dar es Salaam that sank yesterday with 200 people on board.  I think it was a cargo ship, which people frequently try to hitch rides on Edward said, and the issue was overcapacity.  Edward also spoke about a rescue team existing but not being very good.  The news story probably wasn't even a blip on the radar in the U.S.  Such is the divide between America and places like Africa.

Anyway, around 8:30 I arrived at the office at the back of the physics lab where Steven and I and some other teachers had worked the day before.  Steven wasn’t there, and one of the other teachers took me to go find him.  We located him back by the boys’ dormitories with two students.  Steven came over to ask me to wait for him in his office while he handled a situation...one of his T.O.D. (Teacher On Duty) responsibilities, I imagine.  I agreed to wait in the office, as Steven had needed to leave yesterday too and it had been only a short period of time.  However, today it ended up being an hour and a half before Steven showed back up.  Oh, Africa.

Boys' dormitories (the buildings with the blue doors and window frames)

Meanwhile, I busied myself by writing down a bunch of miscellaneous observations, studying a little Swahili, writing a poem, and reading some things in a Form IV math textbook.  Looking back now on the observations I recorded that morning, I realize that the miscellaneous facts I jotted down throughout my time in Pommern are some of my favorite things to re-read.  The simple everyday mundane things when they happened are what add up to make the experience so incredible.  Re-reading those notes makes me feel like I'm right back in Pommern.  So I'll share with you too in hopes that you can travel to Pommern Secondary School with me...at least in your imagination!

• The physics lab was crowded this morning when I got there.  Students had to stand, and many of them used each other’s backs to substitute for tables.  The room was very quiet for there being so many kids in there.  The teacher spoke very good English and taught mostly in English, though he did take time occasionally to re-explain things in Swahili.
• I enjoyed the many greetings of welcome I received from the various teachers as they came and went from the work area.
• I heard the traditional “3 claps” for praise in the physics lab while I was waiting.  [Side note: I have taught this 3-claps thing to my students here at home and love using it with them!]
• Teachers’ cell phones seem to ring frequently in the middle of class or during teacher meetings at teatime, and that doesn’t seem frowned upon.
• When the next group came into the physics lab, they were very small in number.  One of the first two who came in knocked on the workroom door and was told he could come in.  He asked for a chalkboard eraser, which he was given, and he proceeded to erase the chalkboard on his own accord to ready it for the incoming lesson.  Neat!  The first three in the room sat in the back row but were beckoned forward by the teacher so he could “see their faces.”  A fourth one came in shortly afterwards and sat in the second row. [It must have been a Form V or VI class -- much smaller, more challenging, and more selective.]
• Thoughts on the Form IV math book I looked at... The textbook is published by the Tanzania Institute of Education and purposely aligns with the national standards and benchmarks, called the Tanzania Basic Mathematics Syllabus.  The Form IV book contained mostly geometry and trig, along with a chapter on probability, one on matrices, and one on linear programming.  The odd answers were in the back of the book, just like at home!  “Systems of equations” are called “simultaneous equations.”
• Though I knew it, I was struck by the realization that there is no acceleration of students through the curriculum here (nor special ed for that matter).

When Steven finally showed up (I have no idea what took so long), we continued our lesson planning from yesterday.  Unlike yesterday though where Steven knew what he was doing and taught it to me with me catching on very quickly, Steven seemed very confused today.  Several times I had things figured out and he didn’t know what to do.  I did my best to play dumb and ask if I was doing it right and so on so that I didn’t offend him.  A couple of times, the issue was with differences in how we write things.  For example, clock times in Tanzania are written like decimals, which is confusing -- both use a single dot in the middle up and down.  And on one problem I used a.m. and p.m. instead of military time, and that confused him for a while, even though he did know about a.m. and p.m. in the end.

Steven and I working on preparing lessons

Teatime came pretty fast after Steven showed up, and I was able to enjoy aandazi while the announcements of the daily faculty meeting were conducted in Swahili.  As we returned from teatime, some girls outside one of the classrooms were trying to get my attention and I was oblivious.  Steven pointed it out though, and I talked to the girls for a moment.  They were both shy and excited to talk to me, and there were the typical giggles.  One of them randomly reached up and touched my hair.  I was definitely reminded that there really is no concept of personal bubble around here.  Lack of personal space is also readily apparent in the way the students are crammed into a classroom for lessons, as well as when a teacher doesn’t say excuse me if a student is in their way -- the teacher just physically moves the student out of the way.

When I went back in the workroom, Steven and I continued planning lessons, and after awhile about 4 or 5 members of the science/math department had a meeting in the workroom to discuss the recent Form IV mock exam and why students had done poorly.  Difficulties seemed to be calculation errors, not dividing by 10 properly, not answering all the questions, spending too much time on questions worth very few marks (points), etc.  These findings were written down to be submitted to the headmaster.  It wasn't entirely unlike a department meeting might go in my school at home.

When it was lunchtime, I went back up to the mission house and discovered along the way that there was an HIV/AIDS clinic being held in the village.  Some of the mamas and watoto (moms and children) were from other villages and clearly weren’t so used to seeing wazungu (white people).  One of the little ones loudly shouted, “Mama, mzungu; mama, mzungu!” (Mom, white person; mom, white person!) over and over again as I came up the path.

At 1:05 I returned to the school because Steven had a Form IIIB class at 1:15.  No sign of Steven.  Again.  A student rang the school bell at 1:10 and again at 1:15.  Steven showed up around 1:25.  Typical African time.  We went to the classroom, and there were only 16 students there.  We started class, and tardy students knocked on the door.  Steven would say, “Yes? Come in,” before each student was allowed to enter the room.  We still ended up with only 20 students, even though the class was supposed to have 60-70.

Picture of the "school bell" hanging from a tree in the middle of the school courtyard.  One student is elected as timekeeper, and it is his responsibility to ring the bell (by hitting it with a stick) at the start and end of each class period, as well as a warning bell 5 minutes before the start of a class period that comes at the end of a break.  Ironically, it's actually rung on time most of the time.

Steven started the lesson by reminding the students what they had done the day before and then putting the first example on the board.  After the students had copied it into their notebooks, he demonstrated how to do the problem, writing the solution on the board and explaining it as he went.  Then he wrote the problem for Example 2 on the board and asked me to teach that one.  I went up to do so, but the students were still copying the problem down, so I waited a few moments.  I was about to erase a portion of the chalkboard so I had room to work, when one of the students stepped up to do it, without being asked, mind you.  I said asante sana (thank you very much) without thinking much about it, and the students all giggled.  A teacher never thanks a student for anything around here.  So many cultural differences!

A student erases the chalkboard; Steven passes by

After the students finished copying the problem, I worked and talked through how to solve it.  My first chance to actually teach!  I tried to recruit answers from the class but didn’t do a great job of it the first time through.  I know my native English makes my speech much harder for the students to understand than Steven’s, and I tried hard to speak slowly and clearly.  I also noticed the students weren’t really writing anything down while I was working through the problem, which concerned me slightly.  

When I finished explaining the solution, though, I wrote the third problem on the board and gave the students time to copy it down.  As I walked around the room to see that they were writing, I discovered that it was then that they were copying down my solution for Example 2.  Instead of writing while I was talking and only half-listening to what I was saying, they paid full attention to my explanation and then only when I was done speaking did they copy down the solution.  Different.  Neat, but also time consuming. 

Steven and I proceeded to alternate back and forth between the two of us in writing example problems on the board and solving them.  By the final example I went through, I got a little better at soliciting student answers, something I would continue to work on throughout my time at the school.  I was also very thankful for the extended time Steven and I spent planning and going through things together the day before and that morning.

Form IIIB

I had a little more time to talk with Steven about education and culture and family before it was time for me to head back to the Mission House for lunch.  After I ate, I went for a walk with Amy and Rachel down to the secondary school.  We thought the students were going to be having a debate, but that turned out not to be the case.  Instead we helped part of the construction crew fix one of the tippy-taps (hand-washing stations) down at the secondary school.  

Two teachers use one of the tippy-taps to wash their hands before tea time.  By stepping on the lever at the bottom, the board holding the green jug rotates so that water can drip through holes in the jug's lid.  Innovative!

Then we came back up to the mission house, and I had my warmest shower yet.  (There's no warm running water at the mission house, so we rely on sun showers.)  

Sun showers laying on the cement slab behind the Mission House to warm up in the sun

My sun shower hanging in one of the shower stalls.  (Don't be fooled -- the "real" shower spigot on the right doesn't work, and if it did, it would only produce cold water.)  But ducking below the sun shower on the left to rinse shampoo out of my hair was never my favorite experience!

After that I went with Maria and Ashley to do a little shopping and use the Internet.  We got “lost” trying to find the Catholic church (which is where the internet is) but found some help from some of the locals by asking, “Kanisa iko wapi?”  (Where's the church?)  As it turned out, the Internet closed at 5, so we were unable to use it.  For the first time in my international travels, I actually wasn’t heartbroken to not be able to use the Internet (Ashley was the one who needed to use it most to take care of some plane ticket problems for her trip home), and we made our way back to the mission house.

The Catholic church

The sign, whose meaning we hadn't recognized, that points us to the Catholic church -- now I have a picture of it so there's no excuse to not know next time I'm in Pommern!

Supper was rice, beans, and (chewy) beef (another typical meal), and 8 of us played a rousing game of Spoons after supper, which Rachel and I won.  Then it was time for more journaling and packing for our upcoming weekend at Ruaha National Park.  I was looking forward to seeing the animals again, but I was also kind of disappointed to be leaving the community so soon. Thankfully, I wrote at the time, we’d be back on Sunday and have a good solid week and a half left.  Last time I was in Pommern I really enjoyed myself but I was just homesick enough that I kind of wished my time away.  Not this time.  I wanted to be there and enjoy every experience I could find.

One of our many card-playing nights in the Mission House (photo by Amy)