None of the prep work that I did at home before coming to Tanzania fully prepared me for the reality of the school system here. I knew that there was a desperate need for teachers, but I didn't fully grasp the magnitude of the situation until I set foot in the classroom myself. Of course, the very fact that these schools are willing to use temporary, untrained teachers to teach their students says a lot about the lack of educational resources in the country.
As background, to attend school, students need to pay. The cost usually runs several hundred dollars a year. This cost covers their books and school uniforms. The obvious problem with this system is the widespread unemployment - I've read that it is as high as 70%. Many parents simply can't pay for their children to attend school; moreover, they actually need their children to stay home and help earn money and do chores, such as trek great distances for drinking water. There is a system of government and private schools, but one of the most prevalent forms of schooling is the orphanage system. Due to the devastation of HIV/AIDS, numerous children are orphans. Many are lucky enough to sleep at relatives' homes at night, but during the day, are housed, fed, and educated in orphanages rather than at traditional schools.
I was placed at the Jue Pre and Primary school for children 3-13 years old. It is a private school that conducts all classes in English. When I learned that this was my placement, I was initially worried that a private school, staffed with actual teachers wouldn't have any need for me. Sadly, I discovered that they do. What I am about to describe passes as top caliber teaching in Tanzania.
Students are grouped into classes by age, from pre-school to Class 7. There are approximately 25 children in each classroom. They sit four students to each wooden bench/desk, making cheating off each other a common problem. There are no levels to distinguish between children with great academic aptitude and struggling learners. All students are taught the exact same material.
A typical class for 7-8 year olds begins with the teacher asking students to name a few things that were covered in the prior lesson. This lasts approximately 5 minutes. The teacher then spends 10-15 minutes writing sentences or drawing pictures on the board while the students stare at the ceiling and poke each other with pencils. Next, the teacher asks the students to copy the work off the board and when complete to drop it off at the front of the room.
When the writing begins, the noise level rises noticeably. Some is idle chatter, but a lot is caused by the fact that most of the pencils no longer have erasers and the kids have to find someone who has one to use. Similarly, pencil sharpeners don't exist - the kids share a communal razor that they use at the front of the class to - I am not kidding - carve their pencils to a point. Countless arguments break out over who has an eraser or who grabbed someone's eraser and who has the razor or who took the razor, etc. This absurd situation is normal to the kids - countless educational minutes are lost due to the lack of basic classroom tools. When the students turn in their copied work, the teacher marks it and the kids recopy the exact exercise for homework. The teacher doesn't provide feedback on the work, and the students receive no individual attention. The entire class lesson takes no more than 45 minutes. But the class periods are 120 minutes. The remaining time is filled with rough housing for the kids who are done; the slower children try to continue to work in the chaos. As a result of this methodology, the kids can parrot back phrases and copy what's on the board, but they don't understand much of anything they are supposed to have learned.
Caught up in this system are some amazingly brilliant children. And some children in desperate need of individual attention. There are children who can speak English very well and read fluently. And there are children who barely speak and don't know how to read - at all, even in Swahili, their native language. These children are in the same class with neither group receiving tailored assignments.
In future blogs, I'll talk more about some of the individual students, the curriculum, and how I've been trying to change things for the better.
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