Thursday, June 17, 2010

Term 2

I haven’t written in so long I’m starting to get emails questioning whether I’m okay, so I suppose it’s time for a new post. At the end of April/beginning of May I went to “reconnect” which s part of our peace corps in service training (IST), which is basically exactly what it sounds like: technical training on things like project development and teaching to help us in our various primary and secondary projects. But really ISTs are an excuse to hang out with everyone in the group (the Dirty 30, as we’re the 30th group to arrive in Namibia and well, it’s catchy. We even have 30 people in our group, since we started with 33, lost 4 who went home and gained one who had a site change here from Benin). During our free time during IST we engaged in recreational activities befitting Peace Corps volunteers, playing chess, planning our secondary projects, working on our local languages (code for drink drink drink, and set up the Peace Corps projector in the conference hall to watch hours of Glee). We also had a Doppelganger party, where we drew names of our groupmates from a hat and had to dress up and act like that person for the night. It was pretty hilarious to see how not only do we have very distinct mannerisms that other people in the group obviously pick up on, but we also have so few clothes in this country that we could instantly tell who it was by the outfit. Stewart was me, so he wore my iconic purple t-shirt, chacos and jeans. A few weeks later I was in Rundu meeting another volunteer at dusk, and she said she couldn’t tell whether it was me, but then she saw that I was wearing my purple shirt.
After reconnect Brian flew into Windhoek to meet me and we went on a 2 week trip traversing 4 Southern African countries. I think he’s planning on writing a guest post about our trip so I’ll leave it at that.
So for the last 2 ½ weeks I’ve been back in Caprivi, getting back into the swing of teaching and village life. Actually last week I had to miss a week of school to attend a grade 7 Maths workshop in Katima. Namibians are constantly planning workshops forcing teachers to miss school to discuss things that could have been done in half a day, or via a “circular” (memos that are rumoured to be distributed to all schools, but I somehow never seem to see them. Then when I ask questions like, “did they change the grading scheme for upper primary grades and not tell anyone?” I hear “well didn’t you get the circular?” Nope.) This workshop was particularly painful. We spent a day talking about filling in our continuous assessment forms, which I thought had to be filled out every term, so I have no idea what the teachers at the workshop did last term. Then we talked about files. Oh files, the bane of every education volunteer’s existence. All teachers in Namibia are supposed to have 5 files, each with a different title but with the same papers in them that are impossible to find. They have to be neatly organized and covered with wrapping paper and your performance as a teacher is judged solely on these files. I mean, it doesn’t matter if your learners are doing well or if you can actually teach, if you don’t have those files you fail. I haven’t made my files yet, which probably makes me a terrible teacher. No matter that my grade 7s who started the year not being able to multiply now know all of their times tables.
Maths is, as they say here, a problem. I’m pretty sure that in the lower primary grades (1-4) they do not learn math. At all. They learn how to count up to 20, and recite it 100 times a day (and apparently all forget about 17, according to Andrew who’s listened in on these lessons). Then, suddenly, in grade 5, they’re supposed to start doing long multiplication and division, learn about fractions, decimals and what and what, and they don’t know how to add or subtract or know their times tables. Then, by grade 7 they have a national exam which tests them on what the syllabus says they should be learning, such as multiplying and dividing fractions and decimals, geometry, and the what and what. Then they obviously all fail, literally. At my school last year we had a 0% pass rate. I think the pass rate for the region was 20%. Then we have workshops to discuss why they’re failing, which is obviously because teachers don’t have wrapping paper covers on their binders. Is my frustration with the Nam educational system coming across?
So anyway, I’m trying to take pleasure in small accomplishments, like the fact that I can now ask a kid what 9 times 7 is and she generally knows the answer. I mean, some don’t, but it’s baby steps. So that was my week last week, but made better by the fact that a pizza restaurant opened in Katima and I ate pizza 4 times in 5 days. Our standard of living in Caprivi is improving.
So that’s about all the updates in my life. Not too exciting (except for the pizza!) Today I have a holiday because it’s the Day of the African Child, commemorating the student uprisings in Soweto in 1976 to protest the apartheid education in South Africa. So now I get a random Wednesday off of work! I should spend this time lesson planning and working on setting up the school library but I’ll probably cuddle up under my blankets (it’s winter here now and it is COLD, way colder than I actually thought it would ever get) and watch Friends. Ahh Peace Corps life.