what happens now

the semester has now come to a close. but what happens now? the rains have started to fall and it amazes me to have been here for almost a year. a year that i can heard believe has passed. so many stories and lessons. there is the good and bad. frustration and reward. even that longing that we can connect to that keeps the drive in us alive. thus, i will share a bit with you of what has been and hopefully what will be.

when i arrived, hardly any words were spoken. for one, hardly any words could be understood. my french was terrible. their french was barely adequate. it was simply a struggle. further, i was not the playful and somewhat touchy volunteer that my predecessor was. thus, it took time to get introduced into the surrounding compound and its families.

part of this was accomplished by my wonderful volunteer neighbor, Lauren (who lives only an hours bike ride down the road). between her amazing french and well-established moore, i was able to go beyond introductions with a few in village. then, school started and the kids came to know my name. they came to slowly understand my french (after multiple repetitions). within a few days, i was approached by a junior high school student from one of my classes. he introduced himself and mentioned how he would like to have a few extra exercises. i was thrilled! there was a hunger to understand here, i thought. i would probably been closer to correct if i had realized it was to get a good grade.

in any case, i began by giving out exercises in class then handing a few extra out to neighborhood kids. soon, they would find their way into my courtyard to spend an hour with me, talking about how to distinguish different types of symmetry. in time, i would turn on the light and spread out mats. i don't suppose there was ever a tutoring agreement setup but it fell into place naturally. (of which, i can think my predecessor for having given the solar panel to power the light) soon it was a crowd of fifteen kids coming regularly and staying till later and later, reaching almost midnight routinely.

after the older kids, there came the smaller kids. at first it was just pointing and laughing to try to get me to understand they wanted the light on the outside of the courtyard. the older kids would translate. then, as the year progressed, i was able to get them to start knocking at my door to ask, instead of just screaming into my one of my two windows. after a few more months, they would ask politely, in proper french, for me to turn on the light outside maybe two to three times a week. now, it is pretty much standard. they come, giggle, ask nicely, then clap and cheer as i turn on the light. in return, i have granted them (and showed trust in them) to use the mats outside the courtyard, even to play with my deck of cards until later.

often the children on the back of the house are merely playing games. they like to run and scream. they even sing songs in way that mirrors studying. it's normally along the same melody but the subjects trace through their lessons. they will sing of brushing their teeth or doing math. it's as if Sesame Street had been recreated in my backyard, spontaneously. people always ask if the noise bothers or frustrates me (and it is noisy. Kristy always ends up telling me she can hear them a bit too well when she calls and i am inside). of course it is hard to adjust to at first but the roar of rain on my tin roof is far strong, yet i sleep through it. (actually, i woke this morning with my ears still ringing from all the banging from the rain). in the end, the sound of them playing reminds me of the hope that resides on this continent.

so often, i look out at their parents who are busy grinding millet or replacing mud walls and feel saddened. i see the disconnect between the lives of the adults and the children. there is so little interaction other than orders. kids take care of kids. older taking care of younger. it is marriage that separates adults from children and often at young ages like 14, the girls become 'adults'. such happened to my laundry girl. one night she was taken on a moto to a new village to be married and that was it. she should have been in school. i had hoped my money would go towards such.

thus, at night time, i find myself amongst a handful of students. those students then have taught me more than anyone here. in so many ways, i have felt the students this first year. my aim now is to become a greater teach in the second. thus, as summer is starting, i have collected together math books for each grade, the physics curriculum and english materials. with these, we are starting a summer school. i know that my predecessor had worked with the kids over the summer as well but i am looking to expand that program.

in short, we are building a student run school. well, no real building is involved. instead, this weekend is my first meeting to discuss plans with those same kids that came to my courtyard each night. they will be the teachers and helpers in each class. (all of them passed onto the next grade except one. he actually got a really good grade in my class but did horribly in biology. thus, i was unaware he was struggling) i will then act as the principle or head teacher, a role which i actually hope diminishes. the point is to give my helpers all the material they need to teach their peers, while showing them how they can pull more from the books and their own logical deductions. thus, allowing them to step beyond their need for my guidance before the following summer.

so far, they are all truly excited about becoming helpers. i promised them, in return, to continue helping them in classes that currently have no helpers as of yet (such as physics/chemistry).

in all of this, i have sat down and asked myself what are the major challenges of kicking off this program. my first thought, as i'm sure most will think, was of money. but that was easily resolved. my school was willing to give chalk and one set of resources books. in all reality, this is enough to run the summer school. anything else is really a luxury. instead, i find that i worry most over motivation.

i mentioned above at being thrilled to see a "hunger to understand" which was only partly correct. i have seen the kids striving to understand the material for the class in order to pass the tests. they will repeat phrases over and over into the night until they have it set in stone in the minds. yet, that rigid way of filing informations passes just by education. they can repeat almost anything i have said in class but can hardly ever put it into their own words. if i ask them to give me the definition in their own words, i get silence. they have no framework for how life and school combine. thoughts and wonder to do not make the jump into their daily lessons. i will watch them figure out how to solve a problem like getting water from a well with a broken bucket but that same critical thinking is left outside the school door.

thus, my greatest challenge is to bridge that gap amongst my helpers. if they can see how important it is to think critically to express these ideas to another person (and have them understand), then by all means the program will be a success. for once, the students will not be learning how to think from a white stranger but from their older brother or neighbor. they can reach places i can never go. i will always be the outsider even though the lessons apply to us all.

so that my challenge, to keep the helpers motivated to solve the problems they will have to face (and answer) in their classrooms and to show them how far they've grown once they have. i guess you could say that is the beauty and reward of being a teacher.

a few random notes:

last night it rather flooded. since it was the first major storm of the year, ten goats drowned and now their is a big pow-wow. they'll be eating the goats tonight and thanking the heavens for the rain.

a small boy passed me recently and asked if i wanted meat. he then showed me a rat half his size (about the size of a large cat). i thought i had seen big rats before but suddenly i realized why people like to eat them here. there's more meat on them than on a chicken. it was partially rotted so i didn't buy it. plus he wanted 1500 cfa ($3) for it. talk about an expense rat!

my leaking roof turned into a total gain. i have put nails around leaking points so the water would collect and drip off at the nail. then, placed buckets beneath them. no big deal. the positive, i had run out of water in the house but had forgotten to get some before they closed the pump for the night. but, turns out the fresh rain water was nice and cold. thank heaven for my filter!

i had an end of the year party for my top students. i gave them fantas (a very rare treat here) and made them crepes with chocolate custard. they just sat their stunned. they had never had chocolate nor even heard the word dessert (same in french by the way). when i explained it was made with milk, they seemed even more worried. what was the weird white guy trying to feed them. i finally pulled out my computer and watched part of Kongfu Panda and they relaxed. they enjoyed the food but i think were still a little culture shocked. i could not imagine how these kids would be if they reached their goal of going to America. could they survive without someone there to help them adjust? i've decided that i'll be at least a resource for those kids when i return back home. if they do make it stateside, then at least they will have a familiar voice to call and ask questions.

Bruce is an ornery old man. i think perhaps the kids pulled out his quills and really scared him before i got him. he is always frightened even though i only even come with food. he often will not eat it in my presences. maybe i'm just running a retiring home for the guy. who knows. i even had to cut up the hand-sized lizard we killed for him (via slingshot) before he'd eat it (though he munches down the baby ones whole).

my slingshotting abilities are improving. i put a rock through my quaker oats can from across my courtyard the other day. i didn't want to say anything but i'm kind of a big deal.

my birthday was fantastic. i video chatted with the fam. i talked to Kristy. i made a lemon cake. i bought a new phone (old one died on the way to Ouaga). i even had a breakfast of BACON and eggs! there was even a game night at the AO's house that we all went to. i haven't laughed that much in country. good times. my only regret, i didn't get around to updating my blog and running errands at the post. (don't worry C&B, C&T, Kelly, Erin, Tyler and Grandpa, i've got letters for you all though the post was closed due to Ascension Day. will try again after posting this).

my wonderful neighbor gave me a Tasty Tom (tomato paste brand here) tshirt. it rocked my face off!

my hair has gotten horribly long (check the pics). i'm seriously contemplating cutting it off when Kris gets here. after all, the heat is killing me! so much hair!

my neighbor had a rod go through his palm and out his wrist. his whole had swelled up to double its size. it looked like a mickey mouse glove. freaky. i gave him ibuprofen that i had brought from home when he ran out but really could not do anything for him. when he finally pierced his hand and let the swelling down, there was about a millimeter of dead skin that stayed behind as a tough looking shell. interesting and creepy.

i am trying to figure what i will do after the Peace Corps. if you have any ideas whatsoever, email them to me. if you don't know my email, leave a comment and i will send it to you.

on the ground

within three weeks, the final semester of my first year teaching will come to a close. working daily with the faculty, students and staff has given me at least an idea at the inner workings of the educational system in Rambo. in that framework, i have then tried over the last three semester (sometimes successfully, but not always so) to adapt my own experiences into a creative and interesting mode for learning math. in so many ways, however, i find my role as a math teacher hardly the tip of the iceburg.

first, it is best understand a basic background on schools in Burkina villages (see also Kaityln's wonderfully informative blog). thus, i will breakdown the student, school and situations of both.

the students i teach are between the ages of 10 to 18 years old. in the states, we would equate the grade level to between 7th and 9th grade. on average, they are boys. girls make up less than half of a class, but often more than a third. each is required to wear a uniform of khaki (shirt, pants/skirt) of which most are hand-me-downs that have started to wear. they not allowed to wear clothes are too degraded but not a single set in any of room looks partially new. they have all been worn and sewn many times.

their attitudes range from the most nerdishly shy kids to the bully and even the popular sporty types. there are those that wish to participate and those that hide from any glance i push their way. in no way can one take for granted some sort of homogenous idea of their behavior or learning styles. some are creative and quick, others will take an hour to give you a full sentence (though it will often be an enlightening one).

what they do share is a common restlessness in the classroom. you would probably diagnose it as ADD in the States but truly it is a disconnection from their normal life style that becomes distraction. what i mean is simply that, the elementary school that these children come out of is hardly a strict or even fully academic environment. couple this with the idea that students have no exposure to school activities at home and you began to realize that they are as much fishes out of water as i am in that classroom. therefore, one should expect that a day of lectures while sitting on a crowded wooden bench in 100F heat would be difficult to manage.

outside of school, their home situation is of two degrees. for the girls, it is often vast amounts of chores that leave little time for studying. washing, cooking, taking care of smaller children are hard enough chores to complete in a full day (given that there are no machines, electricity or modern conviences to aid them). the boys often allowed much more liberty and free time that they use to spend playing and being children. in this case, you can see that there develops a rather different set of study habits for the boys than the girls. (their ability to stay awake in class can be correlated to gender, as well)

to complicate matters, most children are absent from their parents for most, if not all their day. the responsiblitiy for a child often rests on the sibilings. to illustrate this, a number of the boys that come to my tutoring sessions live in a seperate building away from their parents (almost like dorms). one boy, who lives with his parents, is required to sleep in the garden when is father is home from working. throughout the day, the lack of supervision continues. for example, i have had children fall asleep in my courtyard while studying. the next morning their parents had not noticed their lack of return to the compound nor were concerned about where they had slept and under which conditions. it is assumed that they were fine and all was well. they would be notified in any case of real trouble, so it goes.

parents of students, can also have very different educational backgrounds, though the most common is none at all. for those that did go to school, it is rarely beyond what is provided in Rambo (if even that). you can find many parents that simply dropped out when the classes were too difficult or interferred with "real work" in the fields. there are rarely any examples of parents that use or even simpley need a middle school education.

further, students are able to retake a grade after failing (but only once). thus you will find that the basic knowledge in your class can fluctuate dramatically (especially as one can pass math but fail the grade, thus having to repeat all the courses). it is also possible (and often happens) that students who have failed twice will find another school in the region to retake the courses (as you cannot in the school in which you failed twice). thus, some kids will be on their third time through the material while others have never seen it in their lives.

the school itself is a concrete building with a tin roof. it is basically, four rooms all in a row that can hold 100 students when packed three to bench-desk. my particular school only goes to the 10th grade (equivalent). students wishing to continue must find another school outside the department (as none exist nearby).

the staff of the school consists of professors, a direct of the school, a disciplinarian, a secretary and a treasure. in our case, the director doubles as a professor, as well. most professors will teach more than one class. (being new to Rambo and French, i had only one subject this year. next year may speak differently)

the resources of the school amount to chalk, paper, blackboards, typewriter and enough books for 90 percent of the students. all in all, it is sufficient to teach a class but would be far below the worst of schools in the States. amazingly, chalk and a chalkboard go a very long way with a little creativity.

professors are also outsides, not from the village. their houses are provided and are next to the school (a km from the market). nor are they all from the same village. they often come from all over (including even the Ivory Coast). they are selected based on grades that they receive on stadarized tests.

thus, this is the situation in which i find myself standing, speaking a foreign language, trying to convey math. in that, i find most of my lessons are more about how to get to the idea of the material, than the material itself. often the subject of the course is very simple and straight forward enough to understand. however, in an environment with very little appreciation for academics, school-based-creativity and critical thinking are almost unknown.

for instances, students often learn that schools are for simply repeating information quickly (comprehension is not required). kids are taught this in the free elementary schools where they are first exposed to French (nothing else is spoken there though they do not speak it themselves at that age). often the elementary cirriculum is based on memorizing songs about french, hygiene or math. kids are taught to read in a specific rhythmic patter but are not often asked comprehensive questions about that reading. thus, many can repeat French phrases with no understanding of what is being said (or a very warped understanding due to having to intuitively divine one).

thus, critical thinking in the classroom is rare and difficult to commence. much time is spent on teaching study skills to my students. proving to them that practice is what makes math understandable and easy or that there are applications for these numbers and figures requires most of each class period. it has thus been my goal to continually experiment and discover new ways in which to reach them while demonstarting the daily lessons.

this further extendes beyond the classroom, as my novelty as a white man does not end at the class door. therefore, i have the unique oppurtunity of continually being the professor or, at least, a big brother type mentor to my students. this means i can get to know them personally, adapting ideas to assist them while also getting direct feedback otherwise unatainable. in so many ways, i started out as a math teacher but found it better to be part of a big brother program that happens to use a lot of math.

in future blogs, i will outline specific action i find to be effective (both in and out of the classroom), including more specific events from this past school year.

here are also some random pics for the last month or so around village. the wounded foot was from my 130km bike ride that i did in one day, during the hot season. yep, i was going to the Hard Corps party. no big deal ;) though it did make me buy a pair of sandals made out of car tires. other pics... the kids are my students and neighbors. the mouse was hunted and killed. the white girls are giving a haircut to the surprise of villagers. oh and proof that i can have a ponytail. the woman selling things on trays are a typical stop on the road to Ouaga. and the woman bending over are pounding down clay to make the floor of the courtyard (substitute for concrete). enjoy.