It has been a long week at Nsumba. Supervising exams and most of all, grading. I put in a few 12-hour days this week getting all my papers graded, but they're done now, so I took off a little early today.
As I expected before I got here, many of my students struggle with math. Last year my Form III students took national exams and only 30% passed math (this put Nsumba among the top 20% in the region). It's kind of discouraging to think that it would take a miracle for me to get half of them to pass their exam next year. Their performance on the end of term test is not encouraging. I think part of the problem is a lack of effort because some of the problems were almost identical to examples we did in class, so if they studied they should have done alright. On the other hand, it's pretty tough that since they have no books, if they don't see something written on the board by me they don't see it at all. Under those conditions it's pretty hard to get what you need across in four hours a week. I'm still pretty new at teaching, so I know I could be better at it. Still I know it's not only my fault. Hopefully in the next year and a half all of us can do better.
One interesting and somewhat related point was a conversation I had with one of my students one day. He actually said that I was his best teacher, and knowing he wasn't exactly enthusiastic about math, I asked him why he thought that. Well, it turns out that it was because I hardly miss any periods. Of course I'd noticed that many teachers seldom leave the staff room and go teach something, but I guess I hadn't noticed the scope of the problem. Now some teachers are really good and always show up, but apparently this student didn't have many of those teachers. So I thought that it was interesting and kind of sad that I'm considered a really good teacher just because I show up.
So most of the hard work is over. It'll probably be hectic Monday and Tuesday next week, but soon I'm off for some time off and a chance to see all the PCVs I trained with. Hard to believe most of them I haven't seen for six months, which is hard after how closely we bonded in our shared trial of Peace Corps training. Until next time.
4 comments:
Hi. I'm an RPCV from Sengerema...just west on a short ferry ride from Mwanza town. I'm very interested to hear your stories, as I miss Tanzania very much! I'm wondering how much it has changed since I left in 2003.
Becky
In a country where the take home pay is not enough to last until the next "pay" cheque, it's kind of difficult to have motivated teachers - teachers who spend time outside classroom during class time to find other sources of income to support their families. Hopefully overtime - with the improvement in the economy and role models like yourself, Andrew - things will improve.
Minaz Versi
Toronto, Canada.
Andrew, safari njema.
Baba
Thanks for the comments. Yes, the pay is a big problem and many teachers must suplement their income. Fortunately the younger teachers often seem very motivated, so hopefully the situation will improve.
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