First Day of School! First Day of School!

Pretty good turnout for the first day of school–considering all they come to do is clean the grounds.

Week 2 of school has just ended, and life in Bujela has picked up—a much welcome change for me. Holiday is nice, but not as nice when you’ve already had 3 months of holiday. Anyone who knows me will not be surprised to know that I was past ready for school to start January 6^th, and for me to have lots to occupy my time with.

So far, said time has been largely occupied by learning students’ names, writing lesson notes for 4 different classes, and getting the hang of the school system here. There are many parallels to my school in Sierra Leone, but also some refreshing differences. Rain still keeps students from arriving on time (fair, since many come from a mile or more away and most don’t have umbrellas or jackets); it is still the norm for teachers to arrive after 1^st period has started (luckily David and I have several 1^st period slots, and we’re always there on time); and child labor is still practiced liberally (but really, who else is going to clean the grounds? It’s just the way it’s done here.).

However, so far I have witnessed no flogging of students, which was a minor problem at my last school. Teachers usually go to class for their scheduled periods. And usually is pretty ahead of the curve, believe me. Enough students actually showed up at school on Wednesday of week 2 for me to start teaching science material! Super exciting, people. For comparison, it took until week 3 or 4 in Salone.

Also, my students are rather willing and able to try new things (well, so far). Today I had a particularly great class with my Form 4 biology students. We tried group work for the first time—a pretty foreign concept to these kids—and they ROCKED it. The task was for them to work together to write an explanatory paragraph describing what we had talked about, sigmoid growth curves. Aka S-curves, if that helps clear things up. I was fully braced for a complete train wreck, but my students left me pleasantly surprised. I was most impressed by a group consisting of a boy and four girls. Usually in a village school, girls tend to be way less participative than boys. But these 5 group members immediately formed a close team huddle, as if they were hotly debating the final play of a football game. Let’s just say they pulled hard on my teacher heartstrings.

Although school is off to a great start and I have great students, I will have my fair share of challenges. Foreseeably, the biggest of these will be communication.   Instruction is supposed to be in English nationwide, as decreed by the Ministry of Education. But in reality, most teaching happens in Swahili, because even teachers’ English isn’t all that great. The teachers here at Mwaji know English to varying degrees, but are more comfortable speaking in Swahili. Which is fair, but it doesn’t help students learn English if all they hear is Swahili. Hopefully a year with two native English speakers will help boost the English capability of students.

Anyways. . . since students aren’t taught in English, many aren’t too competent in it, making my job more difficult. I am constantly troubled by the thought that students may not understand the words coming out of my mouth (much less my goofy accent). And then on top of understanding my English words, they then have to understand the sometimes technical science jargon I am trying to teach them. Double whammy. But, the students and I know this is our weakness, and we are working on ways to ensure understanding on both sides. And by that I mean I taught them thumbs up/thumbs down as a way to gauge comprehension—they love learning American symbols. The trick now is for them to be truthful when they’re not getting it.