Teaching

There is so much that I want to write about-- my trip to Mombassa, playing soccer, and getting a refrigerator. And, it's February already-- crazy! These will all have to wait. Teaching is the topic today.

As I said in a past post, I am teaching at 5 schools. I am more or less a "regular teacher" two of the schools (these two are brother and sister schools to each other). In the other 3, I only teach one hour a week, sort of as a guest teacher for struggling students. As part of the "Access English" program, I think it gives some students exposure to my accent and teaching methods...in my opinion, I think it would be beneficial if I dropped one or two of these schools so that I could spend more time with the students and create more of a culture-- but I am a gracious guest and don't mind teaching one lesson a week to multiple children. Learning their names, on the other hand (never my strength), is a bit of a challenge (except I can rely on saying 'Fatma", and getting at least three responses).

In many aspects, teaching is truly universal-- or at least The US system shares some of the same characteristics as the Kenyan system. I think this could be true because we both modeled our educational philosophies off of the British (maybe forced to in both cases?) Either way, the same methods work in both cases, the same issues ruin lessons, teachers must anticipate the misunderstanding of students, etc. There are schemes (long term plans), objectives, lessons, and even a master-teacher-esqe inspector that comes on occasion. Perhaps the largest similarity is that teachers are undervalued in Kenyan society.

At the main school that I teach, the other English teacher reminds me so much of other first year TFA corps members. She is passionate, smart, and clearly wants to be the best. English is her second language, but she speaks and writes very well. She loves playing scrabble in English. I wouldn't say that I am the best scrabble player (I think Jillian Roland beat me by 300 points once [I didn't pick up one damn 's'!]), I only beat my coworker by 50 points or so. But English is her second language!

It is her first year of full teaching, she is afraid of making mistakes, she regrets the ones she makes and she dwells on them. As many first year teachers (myself included), she is trying to learn the difference between seeking approval from students and seeking feedback from them. The school is a boarding school, so she spends her time with the girls 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And she is 19 years old.

To teach (perhaps because the school is private?) one doesn't need to have a bachelor's degree. She is working to get hers, but she is on semester break, so she is teaching and mentoring-- it is really incredible, actually. She has the with-it factor, too. (If you have time, read this article by Malcolm Gladwell) Completely devoted like many passionate first year teachers, she really helps her students out. She is struggling to find the balance between friend and mentor, but she is working incredibly hard to become a better teacher and does most of the work around the school. I think that she may be the best teacher, there, too. She, again, is 19 years old.

I cannot say that I agree with each and every ideal that TFA aligns (for all corps members, did you catch the pun?) I can say, though, that traditional teacher training probably does not give first year teachers much more experience than teaching your own class day after day. I will emphasize again, too, that good teachers are undervalued-- a number of teachers are still in college and are teaching on their semester breaks.

The major difference between our schools and theirs-- there is a lack of creative thinking. Most of everything is very rote. For English class, we practice incredible amounts of grammar, a smattering of terrible reading passages, some spelling and vocabulary. The teacher is at the front of the room, there are rows of partnered desks. I asked how many students wrote poetry before (after a failed lesson of an "I am" poem) and two of the 26 raised their hands. Either they really hadn't, which wouldn't be surprising, or they just failed to understand my accent.

This way of teaching reminds me of my father's papers of the 1950s and 60s-- he had to write EXACTLY 250 words describing an orange or my mother's Catholic classroom of 80 first grade students. I hate to admit it, but there are certainly some advantages to this methods. Students learn because they are forced to pay attention, the constant reminders allow the material to be drilled in their head. Misbehavior isn't allowed or 'else.' (Kenyans get the 'or else,' too, let me tell you.) Also, I know that both my mother and father needed to write poetry and read novels and the like. Both my parents are very smart-- so something certainly worked in their respective education.

The reason for this rote memorization, I believe partly, is due to the lack of resources at schools. There is no such thing as a Smart Board here... I live in a world of chalk dust, wooden desks that open up, and stifling classrooms. We don't have a copy machine, so everything is written in a notebook. I discovered that they have an LCD projector (who knows how they got this!?) and I have used it on occasion, but part of me thinks that they are conserving the bulb...I honestly have no idea where you would be able to find one around here. It is just the vibe that I get. We have some computers, but they are rarely used. In fact, watching the teachers type formal exams on computers is painful because of their speed. They sometimes just watch me write emails to see how fast the words come up on the screen. (Don't worry, I volunteered to type formal exams for them).


As for my teaching, I am operating along the same lines as I do in each new teaching experience-- it certainly is challenging but I am learning so much. They have such a difficult time with my accent. When they impersonate me, it comes off sounding like the Swedish chef on the Muppets. They aren't used to hearing the hard 'r' sounds because of their British past. The students are warming up to me, though, especially during 'games' time, when I coach them football (soccer) and volleyball. They love learning new songs so I teach them all of the camp songs that I know... they love it. It is a good way to learn some English, too! They are extremely well behaved in class, partly because they need to hang onto my every word or they will miss an important concept and partly because of the 'or else' factor. I teach Form 1 and 2 (equivalent to ninth and tenth grade) and they speak proficiently. Their writing, on the other hand, is similar to students at Ballou-- putting sentences and concepts together just isn't a strong suit. Isn't it strange that writing is such a taught skill when we speak it everyday?


There is so much more, but this is getting painfully long. More to come... and check out the pictures!

All my best,

Adam