Yellow buses still take students to school. Homework is still assigned and received with groans from students. 9003.3 miles away from Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington, USA students are learning at St. Margaret’s English Medium School in Kisongo, Tanzania right out side of Arusha. It has been very interesting to learn about how the location, school and classroom dynamics influence this learning environment.
St. Margaret’s English Medium School is located outside Arusha in Kisongo. With the backdrop of baby blue sky, puffy white clouds and the sky stretching Mount Meru standing proud, around 500 students and twenty faculty ride twelve packed school buses over concrete, dust, and gravel to attend school. This school is located about 20 miles outside of heavy populated Arusha, and practically out in the middle of nowhere. When it rains bus drivers have to worry about hydroplaning on clay-saturated mud, and when it’s dry dust cakes everything. Local herdsmen (typically from the Maasi tribe) heard cows, donkeys, goats and sheet along the roads and pass the school. It’s not uncommon for a donkey to interfere with a recess game of soccer. :)
Students, teachers and administration make up the school demographics. As mentioned previously there are about 500 students enrolled in primary and grades 1 – 7. Each number grade is divided into two sections (cliché named A and B). Throughout the school English is strongly enforced and monitored. However, in the teachers’ break room and on the bus kiSwahili is slipped back in. All students are African, but come from different places around the continent. There is also one young student who is Albino. The staff is completely African, including the two student teachers. Mama Tesha established this school in 1996 and moved it out to its current location in 2003 after great sponsorship by the Friends of African Association based out of Minnesota. Many of the students attend school thanks to the sponsorships mainly based out of America.
I have been placed with Mr. Mwendo who teaches Class 3 English. This includes IIIA that is comprised of 36 students with 6 that admit to not reading English and IIIB with 35 students and 15 that admit to not being able to read English. Class is taught primarily in English, but Teacher Mwendo use kiSwahili for clarification, or to tell the students to behave sometimes. The classroom is very untypical from any in the states. There are no posters, books for fun, student work posted on the concrete walls just the examination results which are glued on with Elmer’s. There is a chalkboard with a duster that floats between the two third grade classes. Students stand up when they give an answer, great you with scripted welcome, or getting the cane. They spend lots of time just sitting in their desks waiting for a teacher to come in and teach. These are my classroom demographics. Our class day is broken up nicely with me teacher IIIB before tea, IIIA for after tea/before lunch, and then plenty of time to grade or "mark" up the exercise books that I assigned. I also have had time to go help out in the library last week primarily when students were taken (late) end of the month tests.
From the three characteristics of the school listed above, it has been interesting to see how they influences the education as a system. Due to the location and the need to take school buses to and from school, teachers do not have the ability to stay after to work on projects. Whatever they want to do they must do the majority of it while at school. This leads to many breaks for both them and the students. The school demographics of being relatively new paired with location means that there are not abundant resources for teachers and students to use. All work is copied off the blackboard which takes time and lots of chalk. The classroom set up is one based on the principle that students are “blank slates” that need to be filled. All answers are recited without much creativity or leeway for answers. If something is not perfect or if they are lazy in any sort of way, they could get caned. All of this makes up the learning environment for the students and where I teach.
I have had the pleasure of teaching quite a bit starting on day one when I was told I would just be observing. Prepositions, spelling words, clock, and reading are just some of the activities that we have done. I try to keep students moving and learning with fun, but it is hard with 36 students and a slight language gaps, and not many resources to use. All in all I am loving it and can't wait to keep teaching. Unfortunately I don't have very many more days, but it has been such a blessing. I don't know how I will be able to leave at the end of the month as there is so much I want to do here, but will see what happens. For now though I continue to ride a bus that is packed full with students, write on chalkboards and have tons of fun!
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