Saturday, February 14, 2009

 

There's a hole in the bucket...

A Tanzanian school is like a bucket with a hole in it. You can keep putting in more teachers, over and over, until the bucket should be overflowing. And yet somehow, at the end of the day, there are never enough teachers to fill all the classrooms.

My school briefly had enough teachers. Back around August, we had teachers come to do their student teaching. Then other teachers left to go study. And slowly, as they finished their student teaching, the student teachers left too.

Now there are about 14 of us, for 550 students, all of whom study 10 subjects. There are two chemistry teachers (I'm one), two physics teachers, one history teacher. This puts us in a good position compared to many of the schools in the area, but it certainly doesn't mean we have enough teachers. Last year, we filled all the slots on the school schedule, even if only in name (one teacher had more periods than there were in a week). This year, some slots are empty. Other slots contain teachers who have already left, or who never came back after winter break.

So much turnover. For a country where some people never go much farther than the home village, there's an amazing amount of movement in Tanzania. The educated class of teachers is constantly moving, looking for a better place to teach, looking for a place to continue their studies. It's awesome that teachers are going to university and reaching a level of education that their parents or grandparents could only have dreamed of. But what do we do about all the students who are left without teachers?

 

Mwenyeji at last?

As I was walking through town this morning, I notice a kid selling necklaces walking towards me. This is normal: souvenir sellers move toward wazungu like iron to a magnet.

'Jambo!' he said.
I don't like being taken for a tourist. I responded rather grumpily, 'Habari za asubuhi?'
'Ah!' he said, his tone changing. 'Where is teacher?'
'Mimi ni teacher'. I am a teacher.
'The other teacher. Peter.'
'He'll be in town in a few hours.'

A short exchange, but a heartening one. After only a few moments, he recognized me! He knows I'm the random white teacher who walks around with the other white teacher--a great improvement over being seen as the random white tourist. I may finally be on my way to becoming a local.

 

Test scores

Highest score on my chemistry monthly test: 100
Lowest score on my chemistry monthly test: 0

No wonder I'm never sure what pace to teach at.

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