Day 25 – May 29
Well, there’s not much more to say but to close off this internship blog. Today was the last day and the last commute through the coffee fields.
The morning exam session was the English exam for the Form II students that we weren't able to do on Monday morning. I supervised the IIB class but was angry through it all. Not at the students, but at the teacher who taught them and prepared the exam. One of the questions was horrible and entirely unfair to the students, and on another, it was very clear that she had not taught them properly during their lessons, so they were unable to answer properly. Unfortunately, there's not much I can do now.
By the time the exam finished, the carpenters had arrived and were working on the large locking cabinet as well as putting the final touches on the tables and chairs brought yesterday (including balancing them). While they were doing that, I went to town to send my reports and then went back to the school to say my goodbyes to the students and the staff.
I could do a final summary of some sort, but I think the almost 17,000 words that I’ve spit out into this blog over the past 5 weeks says enough about my experience here. It was truly one that I will never forget.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
A staffroom that looks like a staffroom
Day 24 – May 29
Today, on the last official day of the internship, there is very little to report. I supervised the writing of two exams: the Form IB Civics exam in the first session and the Form IIB Biology exam in the second session. Both went off without incident.
The best part came at the end of the day, around 3pm, when the carpenter’s truck pulled up. He was delivering the office tables and chairs for the staffroom. Most of the staff had already gone home, so they will have a nice surprise when they arrive at work tomorrow morning. The staffroom is now looking a lot more just that: a staffroom. All the teachers now have a proper table and proper chair to sit at, plan their lessons and mark work. Hopefully it will help the teachers feel more comfortable and thus more inclined to do their jobs professionally.
After arranging the tables, I told the headmaster that I would like to try and take a school picture. With more than 200 students, it was no easy feat, but we got them lined up pretty well and I think the result is quite nice. Hard to see all the faces in a small shot, though; might have to get an enlargement.
On the route home, the headmaster and I stopped for a quick bite and a drink. In our conversation, I tried to press the error of corporal punishment at school and the poor lessons it teaches the children. Yesterday when I was talking with Mr. Nazari about this, I think it finally struck home and he realized the wrong in it. Unfortunately, however, today’s conversation seemed to do nothing to convince the headmaster to cease beating the children. He is convinced (and sadly, he’s not the only one) that with “these African children”, as he put it, sometimes it’s the only way they’ll learn. There was a time that Canadian educators believed it as well, though that practice has now been abolished. Let’s hope Tanzania is just a few steps behind in the same process and that they’ll see the light sooner rather than later.
While the internship is officially over today, I will be going in for one more day tomorrow to supervise an exam in the morning session and to receive the delivery of the last of the furniture (large shelf and lockable cupboard) that the carpenter is bringing.
Today, on the last official day of the internship, there is very little to report. I supervised the writing of two exams: the Form IB Civics exam in the first session and the Form IIB Biology exam in the second session. Both went off without incident.
The best part came at the end of the day, around 3pm, when the carpenter’s truck pulled up. He was delivering the office tables and chairs for the staffroom. Most of the staff had already gone home, so they will have a nice surprise when they arrive at work tomorrow morning. The staffroom is now looking a lot more just that: a staffroom. All the teachers now have a proper table and proper chair to sit at, plan their lessons and mark work. Hopefully it will help the teachers feel more comfortable and thus more inclined to do their jobs professionally.
After arranging the tables, I told the headmaster that I would like to try and take a school picture. With more than 200 students, it was no easy feat, but we got them lined up pretty well and I think the result is quite nice. Hard to see all the faces in a small shot, though; might have to get an enlargement.
On the route home, the headmaster and I stopped for a quick bite and a drink. In our conversation, I tried to press the error of corporal punishment at school and the poor lessons it teaches the children. Yesterday when I was talking with Mr. Nazari about this, I think it finally struck home and he realized the wrong in it. Unfortunately, however, today’s conversation seemed to do nothing to convince the headmaster to cease beating the children. He is convinced (and sadly, he’s not the only one) that with “these African children”, as he put it, sometimes it’s the only way they’ll learn. There was a time that Canadian educators believed it as well, though that practice has now been abolished. Let’s hope Tanzania is just a few steps behind in the same process and that they’ll see the light sooner rather than later.
While the internship is officially over today, I will be going in for one more day tomorrow to supervise an exam in the morning session and to receive the delivery of the last of the furniture (large shelf and lockable cupboard) that the carpenter is bringing.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Bad day
Day 23 – May 28
Today was my worst day at Mangi Sabas.
It began simply enough. I was supposed to have the morning free, as I wasn’t scheduled to supervise an exam, but the second mistress was late or absent so I was asked to sub in. Not a problem. The Form II classes are pretty good and cheating never seems to be a problem. The students finished the exam fairly quickly and we had over an hour before the next was set to start at 11am.
Around quarter after 10 I noticed something going on in the second mistress’ office (she had arrived). Various students were being called in. At one point, a student was beat with a stick so many times that he started crying. It was horrible to hear and really difficult to tolerate. Afterwards, more students were called in and after that even some teachers were called in. I had no idea what was going on at the time but it was taking a lot of time. As 11 o’clock rolled around and I got my papers ready for the second exam session, another teacher told me that the exams wouldn’t be taking place until whatever it was that was going on in the second mistress’ office had been resolved.
And it went on…and on… and on. Finally, around 1pm, there was sudden movement and they said the exams were to start. By this time I had been wondering if we’d even continue with the plan to conduct the afternoon session, and when they finally decided to, I was angry.
I was hungry, since I hadn’t eaten since 6:30 that morning and they were planning to start a 2 ½-hour exam right when we should have been eating lunch. But more than angry for me, I was angry for what they had done to the students. Going through a week packed with 10 exams is hard enough by itself, let alone being made to wait in between for no reason, disturbing your mindset, etc. On top of that, instead of dealing with the matter at the end of the day, the administration had pressed on for more than two hours with their handling of the matter and now the students were to sit down to write and exam on very empty stomachs. How can they expect students to do a good job on term exams when they are starving hungry. During the exam I was so hungry that it was hard for me to concentrate on watching the students, so I can only imagine the situation the students were in knowing that the marks counted for a lot.
So I was already displeased with what was going on when, just after half-way through the exam, I saw a student toss a paper across the row to another girl. I immediately went over, looked at the paper, and found a question of the test copied out on it: they were cheating. I asked the student to write her name on a piece of paper but she was to shocked and afraid to. It didn’t matter. At the end I kept both their tests separate and called them into the office where I and another teacher had a talk with them.
As it turns out, what I had seen was the return throw of the cheating, and in fact the second girl had thrown the paper back refusing to answer the question for her classmate. I told her, though, that just doing that can be perceived as cheating by a teacher, since all they see is the passing of the paper. The girl who originally asked for help admitted to the offence. These two girls are Form I students, taking term tests for the first time, it was a difficult physics exam and they probably just made a stupid mistake. To boot, neither of them benefited. I hated to punish them, but it couldn’t go unpunished. So the other teacher and I discussed the punishment. I didn’t want to tell the headmaster for fear that the students would receive a beating, and I didn’t want that happening at my hands. So we decided to keep it quiet and punish them by deducting marks off their tests. We called them back, told them our decision, but also that they had gotten off fairly lightly all things considered. I hope it was a lesson for them.
However unavoidable it might be, punishing kids leaves a bad taste in your mouth, especially when they are remorseful. That, on top of what I had witnessed earlier in the day had me feeling none to good on the walk home today.
Today was my worst day at Mangi Sabas.
It began simply enough. I was supposed to have the morning free, as I wasn’t scheduled to supervise an exam, but the second mistress was late or absent so I was asked to sub in. Not a problem. The Form II classes are pretty good and cheating never seems to be a problem. The students finished the exam fairly quickly and we had over an hour before the next was set to start at 11am.
Around quarter after 10 I noticed something going on in the second mistress’ office (she had arrived). Various students were being called in. At one point, a student was beat with a stick so many times that he started crying. It was horrible to hear and really difficult to tolerate. Afterwards, more students were called in and after that even some teachers were called in. I had no idea what was going on at the time but it was taking a lot of time. As 11 o’clock rolled around and I got my papers ready for the second exam session, another teacher told me that the exams wouldn’t be taking place until whatever it was that was going on in the second mistress’ office had been resolved.
And it went on…and on… and on. Finally, around 1pm, there was sudden movement and they said the exams were to start. By this time I had been wondering if we’d even continue with the plan to conduct the afternoon session, and when they finally decided to, I was angry.
I was hungry, since I hadn’t eaten since 6:30 that morning and they were planning to start a 2 ½-hour exam right when we should have been eating lunch. But more than angry for me, I was angry for what they had done to the students. Going through a week packed with 10 exams is hard enough by itself, let alone being made to wait in between for no reason, disturbing your mindset, etc. On top of that, instead of dealing with the matter at the end of the day, the administration had pressed on for more than two hours with their handling of the matter and now the students were to sit down to write and exam on very empty stomachs. How can they expect students to do a good job on term exams when they are starving hungry. During the exam I was so hungry that it was hard for me to concentrate on watching the students, so I can only imagine the situation the students were in knowing that the marks counted for a lot.
So I was already displeased with what was going on when, just after half-way through the exam, I saw a student toss a paper across the row to another girl. I immediately went over, looked at the paper, and found a question of the test copied out on it: they were cheating. I asked the student to write her name on a piece of paper but she was to shocked and afraid to. It didn’t matter. At the end I kept both their tests separate and called them into the office where I and another teacher had a talk with them.
As it turns out, what I had seen was the return throw of the cheating, and in fact the second girl had thrown the paper back refusing to answer the question for her classmate. I told her, though, that just doing that can be perceived as cheating by a teacher, since all they see is the passing of the paper. The girl who originally asked for help admitted to the offence. These two girls are Form I students, taking term tests for the first time, it was a difficult physics exam and they probably just made a stupid mistake. To boot, neither of them benefited. I hated to punish them, but it couldn’t go unpunished. So the other teacher and I discussed the punishment. I didn’t want to tell the headmaster for fear that the students would receive a beating, and I didn’t want that happening at my hands. So we decided to keep it quiet and punish them by deducting marks off their tests. We called them back, told them our decision, but also that they had gotten off fairly lightly all things considered. I hope it was a lesson for them.
However unavoidable it might be, punishing kids leaves a bad taste in your mouth, especially when they are remorseful. That, on top of what I had witnessed earlier in the day had me feeling none to good on the walk home today.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Exam Express
Day 22 – May 27
Very little to report on the school front today as we continued with the second day of exams. I wasn’t scheduled for the first session, but presided over the second session history exam for the Form IIA class. For history, it wasn’t much of a term exam though, I have to say. It consisted of three sides of foolscap, containing mostly multiple choice questions, one matching exercise, and two list questions. There were no short-answer or essay questions whatsoever. Not surprisingly, despite having two hours to write the exam, the students were finished after about 45 minutes. Our day was done by 12pm, but unfortunately, the teachers are required to stay until 3:30pm and the students even longer. It seemed like such a waste, especially for the students, who spent the time doing nothing when they could probably have been studying at home. Tomorrow’s exams are geography and physics.
At lunch another teacher and I walked down to the cookhouse to watch the students get their lunch. There is one massive, massive cauldron of ugali (maize flour polenta) and a large pot of beans. The students line up with their own plate, bowl or whatever container they’ve brought from home and receive it in that. A few have spoons but most just take a chunk of ugali (it’s rather stiff) and sop up the beans. As a rule, the girls line up and receive their lunch first, which they do in a fairly orderly fashion. By the time it comes to the boys’ turn, especially after half of them have already gotten their food, the line breaks down into a bit of a mob jostling to get their plate to the server. The reason is that the beans usually run out before the ugali, and ugali by itself is a rather dry and tasteless affair.
On the way home from school I passed the carpenter’s workshop. Three men were out working and the tables and chairs for the staffroom were complete, varnished, and drying in the sun. They were just sanding the large shelf. I don’t know how far along they are (or if they’ve started at all) on the lockable cabinet, but they are supposed to have everything finished and delivered by Thursday. They have an incentive: I’m the one who has the money and I leave on Friday!
Very little to report on the school front today as we continued with the second day of exams. I wasn’t scheduled for the first session, but presided over the second session history exam for the Form IIA class. For history, it wasn’t much of a term exam though, I have to say. It consisted of three sides of foolscap, containing mostly multiple choice questions, one matching exercise, and two list questions. There were no short-answer or essay questions whatsoever. Not surprisingly, despite having two hours to write the exam, the students were finished after about 45 minutes. Our day was done by 12pm, but unfortunately, the teachers are required to stay until 3:30pm and the students even longer. It seemed like such a waste, especially for the students, who spent the time doing nothing when they could probably have been studying at home. Tomorrow’s exams are geography and physics.
At lunch another teacher and I walked down to the cookhouse to watch the students get their lunch. There is one massive, massive cauldron of ugali (maize flour polenta) and a large pot of beans. The students line up with their own plate, bowl or whatever container they’ve brought from home and receive it in that. A few have spoons but most just take a chunk of ugali (it’s rather stiff) and sop up the beans. As a rule, the girls line up and receive their lunch first, which they do in a fairly orderly fashion. By the time it comes to the boys’ turn, especially after half of them have already gotten their food, the line breaks down into a bit of a mob jostling to get their plate to the server. The reason is that the beans usually run out before the ugali, and ugali by itself is a rather dry and tasteless affair.
On the way home from school I passed the carpenter’s workshop. Three men were out working and the tables and chairs for the staffroom were complete, varnished, and drying in the sun. They were just sanding the large shelf. I don’t know how far along they are (or if they’ve started at all) on the lockable cabinet, but they are supposed to have everything finished and delivered by Thursday. They have an incentive: I’m the one who has the money and I leave on Friday!
Monday, May 26, 2008
Who typed these things up??
Day 21 – May 26
Term exams began today but they got off to a rocky start. For some reason, the exam papers were not ready and the headmaster had to go to town in the morning to get them. He had gone yesterday (Sunday) as well, but the office was closed (naturally), and the promise was that they’d be ready early this morning. Why they were being done at the last minute is beyond me. The original date to submit the exams for printing was the 16th of May. So either the printers had them for a long, long time or the headmaster got lazy and didn’t put them in until the end of next week. As Mr. Nazari put it succinctly as we waited for the exams to arrive, “We Tanzanians are very good at making policy but not so good at implementation.”
So the students came to school prepared to write their English exam and then had to sit and wait for over an hour and a half. That has to be unsettling if you’re trying to keep yourself in your exam mindset. It wasn’t really fair to the students. Finally, at about 9:30, the headmaster pulled up in a taxi with the box of tests. You’d think everything would be then be fine, but that wasn’t the case.
As we went to divide up the tests to take to the various classes, it was discovered that not enough of the Form II English exams were printed, so they couldn’t write it. Instead, the Form Is got underway around 10am. As I looked over the section of the exam for which I submitted questions, I was appalled at the typographical errors throughout. In one paragraph, a dictionary entry, I had to make 4 critical corrections. Another section of the test had three critical errors. And despite the fact that it was sent to either a board office or a printing company, none of it was done on computer – it was all done by typewriter (or some kind of stenograph machine).
The Form Is had 2 hours for an exam that really only needed one. I was overseeing the IB class and almost had to bust a student for cheating – it was border-line. Instead, I just kept an eagle eye on him and the questionable activity subsided. Afterwards, I made quick work of marking my questions on the exam for the two classes. On one question the students performed well, and on the other poorly. Better resources and a little more time would have seen better results on the second question, I think.
In the afternoon session, I presided over the Form IIA class during their mathematics exam. They were very well behaved, so there wasn’t much for me to do. Again, the typographical errors in the exam were horrendous. These kids, the equivalent of grade 9s, had been studying quadratic equations. The teacher had submitted an original with the question “Solve t2 + 6t + 8 = 0”, easy enough for them to do, but it came printed as “Solve t^^2 + 6^t +8 = 0” – a considerably harder equation requiring knowledge of logarithms! Fortunately, we were able to find all the errors and make them known to the students.
The rest of the week promises to hold more of the same. I don’t mind invigilating the exams, but I had thought I’d be able to get a bit of reading done. It doesn’t look like that’s going to be the case, as I spend all my time watching the students for cheating.
Term exams began today but they got off to a rocky start. For some reason, the exam papers were not ready and the headmaster had to go to town in the morning to get them. He had gone yesterday (Sunday) as well, but the office was closed (naturally), and the promise was that they’d be ready early this morning. Why they were being done at the last minute is beyond me. The original date to submit the exams for printing was the 16th of May. So either the printers had them for a long, long time or the headmaster got lazy and didn’t put them in until the end of next week. As Mr. Nazari put it succinctly as we waited for the exams to arrive, “We Tanzanians are very good at making policy but not so good at implementation.”
So the students came to school prepared to write their English exam and then had to sit and wait for over an hour and a half. That has to be unsettling if you’re trying to keep yourself in your exam mindset. It wasn’t really fair to the students. Finally, at about 9:30, the headmaster pulled up in a taxi with the box of tests. You’d think everything would be then be fine, but that wasn’t the case.
As we went to divide up the tests to take to the various classes, it was discovered that not enough of the Form II English exams were printed, so they couldn’t write it. Instead, the Form Is got underway around 10am. As I looked over the section of the exam for which I submitted questions, I was appalled at the typographical errors throughout. In one paragraph, a dictionary entry, I had to make 4 critical corrections. Another section of the test had three critical errors. And despite the fact that it was sent to either a board office or a printing company, none of it was done on computer – it was all done by typewriter (or some kind of stenograph machine).
The Form Is had 2 hours for an exam that really only needed one. I was overseeing the IB class and almost had to bust a student for cheating – it was border-line. Instead, I just kept an eagle eye on him and the questionable activity subsided. Afterwards, I made quick work of marking my questions on the exam for the two classes. On one question the students performed well, and on the other poorly. Better resources and a little more time would have seen better results on the second question, I think.
In the afternoon session, I presided over the Form IIA class during their mathematics exam. They were very well behaved, so there wasn’t much for me to do. Again, the typographical errors in the exam were horrendous. These kids, the equivalent of grade 9s, had been studying quadratic equations. The teacher had submitted an original with the question “Solve t2 + 6t + 8 = 0”, easy enough for them to do, but it came printed as “Solve t^^2 + 6^t +8 = 0” – a considerably harder equation requiring knowledge of logarithms! Fortunately, we were able to find all the errors and make them known to the students.
The rest of the week promises to hold more of the same. I don’t mind invigilating the exams, but I had thought I’d be able to get a bit of reading done. It doesn’t look like that’s going to be the case, as I spend all my time watching the students for cheating.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Last lessons
Day 20 – May 23
Today’s commute beat them all, as it started pouring rain at 5am and didn’t stop until well after we had arrived at school. That meant an hour and twenty minutes of (mostly) walking, and because of all the rains, the buses were only going part way up the road, leaving us to hike the rest through first corn fields then coffee fields, clutching umbrellas and trying to keep at least a small patch of clothing dry.
Fortunately, I was able to start my classes just 30 minutes late, bus since I had planned a full 80-minute class, I had to do some revisions, especially with the first group. With the rain as well as the fact that it was the last day before exams, the students weren’t really in the mood for a regular class. I pushed on though, and we had a fairly good lesson about finding important information in newspaper articles. At the end, I distributed the paraphernalia I had brought from Canada. I had bookmarks with the text of the national anthem, flag stickers, and mini paper flags. I had honestly thought that none of the students would want the paper flags, but in fact they were the item that went fastest – almost all the students wanted one. We then took a class photo.
I repeated the process with each of the Form II classes, although for some reason things got out of hand with the souvenir distribution in the 2C class. They were like lions fighting over a kill! I had to stop things completely for a while to get order back. Afterwards, I visited the Form I classes to distribute the Canada items. The flags were gone so I added the flag pins to the mix, and they went like hotcakes.
By the time I had finished with everything, it was past noon and little time left before leaving to file my reports. I gave out Canada stuff to all the teachers in the staffroom, and they were immediately enthralled with the words to the national anthem on the bookmark, so much so, in fact, that they asked me to sing it. I had my laptop so I put the music on and sung along with it once, and then they insisted on hearing it again so that they could sing it! Finally, they made me sing it in French just to hear the sound of it. It was a lot of national-anthem singing for one day.
There was no word at school today about the fracas after the soccer match yesterday. Despite the actions of the girls and of the teachers, I had decided to keep my mouth shut on this one. The reasons were a little bit selfish: since I’m staying with the headmaster, both the students and the teachers would have known it came from me, and I didn’t want to sour the last week (or my last day of teaching) with them all suffering punishment from the headmaster. The kids have it bad enough as it is; they don’t need any more beatings.
Today’s commute beat them all, as it started pouring rain at 5am and didn’t stop until well after we had arrived at school. That meant an hour and twenty minutes of (mostly) walking, and because of all the rains, the buses were only going part way up the road, leaving us to hike the rest through first corn fields then coffee fields, clutching umbrellas and trying to keep at least a small patch of clothing dry.
Fortunately, I was able to start my classes just 30 minutes late, bus since I had planned a full 80-minute class, I had to do some revisions, especially with the first group. With the rain as well as the fact that it was the last day before exams, the students weren’t really in the mood for a regular class. I pushed on though, and we had a fairly good lesson about finding important information in newspaper articles. At the end, I distributed the paraphernalia I had brought from Canada. I had bookmarks with the text of the national anthem, flag stickers, and mini paper flags. I had honestly thought that none of the students would want the paper flags, but in fact they were the item that went fastest – almost all the students wanted one. We then took a class photo.
I repeated the process with each of the Form II classes, although for some reason things got out of hand with the souvenir distribution in the 2C class. They were like lions fighting over a kill! I had to stop things completely for a while to get order back. Afterwards, I visited the Form I classes to distribute the Canada items. The flags were gone so I added the flag pins to the mix, and they went like hotcakes.
By the time I had finished with everything, it was past noon and little time left before leaving to file my reports. I gave out Canada stuff to all the teachers in the staffroom, and they were immediately enthralled with the words to the national anthem on the bookmark, so much so, in fact, that they asked me to sing it. I had my laptop so I put the music on and sung along with it once, and then they insisted on hearing it again so that they could sing it! Finally, they made me sing it in French just to hear the sound of it. It was a lot of national-anthem singing for one day.
There was no word at school today about the fracas after the soccer match yesterday. Despite the actions of the girls and of the teachers, I had decided to keep my mouth shut on this one. The reasons were a little bit selfish: since I’m staying with the headmaster, both the students and the teachers would have known it came from me, and I didn’t want to sour the last week (or my last day of teaching) with them all suffering punishment from the headmaster. The kids have it bad enough as it is; they don’t need any more beatings.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Soccer hooligans in disguise
Day 19 – May 22
Sometimes as a guest teacher you’re just always out of the loop. In Japan, being there for three years, I wasn’t even a guest teacher but there were always surprise changes in the schedule and events popped on me without me knowing in advance.
Today was the same at Mangi Sabas. I taught my first class and then did some prep and waited for my second class, which was to start after break. As I popped my head out to see if the students were heading back to class after the break, I saw instead a buzz of activity in the schoolyard. Students were cleaning, fetching water, getting wood, etc. I asked a teacher standing there what was going on and she told me that they were doing the end of day chores because there was a soccer match in the afternoon.
“Today?”
“Yes.”
“So there are no classes for the rest of the day?”
“That’s right, no classes.”
“I see.”
That’s pretty much how the conversation went. Not much I could do there. Unfortunate, since it was to be my last class of the week with the 2C group. Oh well. Still, the prospect of watching a soccer match was exciting and I was looking forward to it.
Despite the scheduled start time of 2pm, the game didn’t actually get underway until 3:30. That’s Africa time for you. Despite facing off against a school from farther away, we all went to neighbouring Mawella Secondary as they have the only soccer pitch in the area, so we had our students, the students from the opposing school and the Mawella students all around the sidelines to cheer. The field was amusing at first glance (to me, at least). It was sloped in both directions such that the far right corner was the lowest point and a cornfield marked the boundary on one side. Still, it was a beautiful setting with nature all around, and if Kilimanjaro hadn’t been covered in clouds, the sight would have been that much more splendid.
There were two spectacles on view today. One was the soccer match – the other was me. As I sat down on the sidelines to watch the match, the local elementary school children who had come to the match sat down to watch me. It was a bit bizarre as they rarely watched the game at all, instead keeping their eyes fixed on me, how I was reacting and what I was saying.
The match was good, the Mangi Sabas team was strong, and they won 4-2. At each goal, the cheering girls would swarm the field, whooping it up. They would then return and chant and taunt the girls on the opposing side. It was all very good-natured, even when it continued pack-like at half-time. After the whistle was blown at full time, the masses of girls swarmed onto to the field again to continue their chanting and taunting. I was watching it all bemusedly when suddenly, like out of a medieval-era movie and their packs of archers, a volley of sticks went up from one of the packs of girls, aimed at the other pack. Immediately, the other pack launched their own volley and suddenly there were sticks flying everywhere. I couldn’t believe it! “Hey! Don’t throw sticks!” I called out in vain.
It was too late. Things had already disintegrated into a crazy crowd mentality. It swarmed and moved to the far end of the field as I watched in disbelief, seemed to calm down, and then flared up again. During this, as I was trying to think of what to do as a simple foreigner and guest teacher who speaks no Swahili, I saw out of the corner of my eye the teachers from Mangi Sabas leaving to go home, completely unconcerned and disinterested. I was dumbstruck. “What kind of teachers are you?!” was all I could think. What very, very little respect I had for them up until that point (given their actions at the school) evaporated as they walked off the field. They don’t care at all about the kids. Teaching is just a paycheque to them – one that they try to get with the minimum amount of work possible.
Fortunately, turning back to the fray, I saw the one teacher from our school who was acting as coach walking across the field towards me. He came up to me and asked me what he thought we should do. He’s a young guy, early twenties, and brand new to teaching (he doesn’t even have a diploma as he’s just a Form VI graduate and temporary teacher), but a pretty decent guy. I told him that we should go and see what was happening and at least make sure our students were okay. By the time we got over there, things were cooling off and some of the students from the other school were heading home. Some of our students also needed to go in the same direction but were having trouble doing that. The other kids, apparently, were hiding in the corn waiting to ambush. So the coach told the kids who needed to go that way to take a roundabout route home and eventually we rounded up all the others and went home ourselves. It was an unfortunate end to a nice afternoon, and I’m still in shock at the behaviour of the other teachers at my school.
Sometimes as a guest teacher you’re just always out of the loop. In Japan, being there for three years, I wasn’t even a guest teacher but there were always surprise changes in the schedule and events popped on me without me knowing in advance.
Today was the same at Mangi Sabas. I taught my first class and then did some prep and waited for my second class, which was to start after break. As I popped my head out to see if the students were heading back to class after the break, I saw instead a buzz of activity in the schoolyard. Students were cleaning, fetching water, getting wood, etc. I asked a teacher standing there what was going on and she told me that they were doing the end of day chores because there was a soccer match in the afternoon.
“Today?”
“Yes.”
“So there are no classes for the rest of the day?”
“That’s right, no classes.”
“I see.”
That’s pretty much how the conversation went. Not much I could do there. Unfortunate, since it was to be my last class of the week with the 2C group. Oh well. Still, the prospect of watching a soccer match was exciting and I was looking forward to it.
Despite the scheduled start time of 2pm, the game didn’t actually get underway until 3:30. That’s Africa time for you. Despite facing off against a school from farther away, we all went to neighbouring Mawella Secondary as they have the only soccer pitch in the area, so we had our students, the students from the opposing school and the Mawella students all around the sidelines to cheer. The field was amusing at first glance (to me, at least). It was sloped in both directions such that the far right corner was the lowest point and a cornfield marked the boundary on one side. Still, it was a beautiful setting with nature all around, and if Kilimanjaro hadn’t been covered in clouds, the sight would have been that much more splendid.
There were two spectacles on view today. One was the soccer match – the other was me. As I sat down on the sidelines to watch the match, the local elementary school children who had come to the match sat down to watch me. It was a bit bizarre as they rarely watched the game at all, instead keeping their eyes fixed on me, how I was reacting and what I was saying.
The match was good, the Mangi Sabas team was strong, and they won 4-2. At each goal, the cheering girls would swarm the field, whooping it up. They would then return and chant and taunt the girls on the opposing side. It was all very good-natured, even when it continued pack-like at half-time. After the whistle was blown at full time, the masses of girls swarmed onto to the field again to continue their chanting and taunting. I was watching it all bemusedly when suddenly, like out of a medieval-era movie and their packs of archers, a volley of sticks went up from one of the packs of girls, aimed at the other pack. Immediately, the other pack launched their own volley and suddenly there were sticks flying everywhere. I couldn’t believe it! “Hey! Don’t throw sticks!” I called out in vain.
It was too late. Things had already disintegrated into a crazy crowd mentality. It swarmed and moved to the far end of the field as I watched in disbelief, seemed to calm down, and then flared up again. During this, as I was trying to think of what to do as a simple foreigner and guest teacher who speaks no Swahili, I saw out of the corner of my eye the teachers from Mangi Sabas leaving to go home, completely unconcerned and disinterested. I was dumbstruck. “What kind of teachers are you?!” was all I could think. What very, very little respect I had for them up until that point (given their actions at the school) evaporated as they walked off the field. They don’t care at all about the kids. Teaching is just a paycheque to them – one that they try to get with the minimum amount of work possible.
Fortunately, turning back to the fray, I saw the one teacher from our school who was acting as coach walking across the field towards me. He came up to me and asked me what he thought we should do. He’s a young guy, early twenties, and brand new to teaching (he doesn’t even have a diploma as he’s just a Form VI graduate and temporary teacher), but a pretty decent guy. I told him that we should go and see what was happening and at least make sure our students were okay. By the time we got over there, things were cooling off and some of the students from the other school were heading home. Some of our students also needed to go in the same direction but were having trouble doing that. The other kids, apparently, were hiding in the corn waiting to ambush. So the coach told the kids who needed to go that way to take a roundabout route home and eventually we rounded up all the others and went home ourselves. It was an unfortunate end to a nice afternoon, and I’m still in shock at the behaviour of the other teachers at my school.
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