Mimi ni mwalimu

*a post from four days ago that I haven't been able to post because of electricity and network problems. Hamna shida (no worries). Enjoy!

Today was officially my first day in the classroom, and I guess beginning today, Mimi ni mwalimu – I am a teacher.  I was supposed to teach my first lesson two days ago: a first-period Biology class to Form I students.  Form I students are new to secondary school and instruction in English.  Learning Biology material is often challenging for students who learn in their native language – and it is hard to imagine how these students can train their thoughts to learn in a language so foreign to them.  Thus, Form I students are among the most challenging to teach, especially for American teachers.

So, I rose before sunrise to travel the 5 kilometers of rocky terrain that separates my home from Chief Kimwere Secondary School.  I arrived at school in good time, to witness students sweeping and organizing the classrooms.  No other teachers arrived for about 30 minutes, and students diligently cleaned each and every classroom in the school.  Alas, when I thought classes would start, a bell rang to instruct students to assemble, and they were all sent to the school farm to harvest corn for their ugali.  So, my first lesson got pushed back to today.  Such is life in Tanzanian schools, and there was nothing to say except hakuna matata – no worries.

Last week, I had the opportunity to work with a few students in my host family, and this gave me an idea of how to develop my teaching skills.  My host brother, Jackson, who attends a secondary school in a town about three hours away, was able to come home for the Eid holidays.  Upon hearing that I am a Biology teacher, he told me that he wanted to learn from me. My host family speaks only Kiswahili, but Jackson can speak a fair amount of English because he is learning uncommonly well in school.  Still, his understanding is far below what I would have expected of a student who learns math, biology, physics, chemistry, geography, and civics in English each week.  I began to engage him a lesson that I had prepared for a practice “microteaching” lesson for my colleagues during Peace Corps Training.  I worked with him through an interactive activity, likening parts of the cell to parts and people of the Tanzanian household.  We learned each item slowly, and I was thrilled to see that he was able to correctly complete my activity.  It was late at night by the time we finished, but Jackson agreed to teach the same lesson back to me the following night.

The next night, he seemed unsure of how to proceed.  I asked him a few starting questions, and he quoted answers for me directly from his textbook.  Closing his book, I told him that I wanted to hear answers from his brain, not from the book.  He looked at me incredulously, but surprised me with an excellent understanding of all the concepts we had talked about.  When he forgot a certain part of the cell, he would refer back to the drawings on the activity cards that I had made – and was able to teach me the entire lecture correctly.  I was so proud of him, and felt fulfilled in my first teaching experience in Tanzania.

Each night that he was home, he brought an exceptionally bright friend along, and they were eager to get my help in science concepts that they didn’t understand.  Many things are difficult to explain to students across a large language and culture barrier.  At one point, I had tried to explain the concept of diffusion of oxygen across an alveolar membrane (a structure in the lung) to no avail.  Desperate, I grabbed whatever objects I could find – two glasses, bits of paper, and hair ties from my wrist.  It’s amazing to see students who are used to learning from a dusty chalkboard understand something when they see science come alive.  Teaching these boys helped me to formulate a few strategies to help Tanzanian students learn.  Augustino even returned to my house after Jackson had gone back to school.  One night, he helped me prepare teaching aids for my lesson the next day – astoundingly accurate and detailed drawings of cars, buses, and airplanes.

I had observed one class at Chief Kimwere before, and was skeptical about my abilities to teach Tanzanian students.  The teacher who I am working with seems to be more motivated to inspire her students than her colleagues are – but at my school, this isn’t saying much.  Although she teaches by rote, as is the custom in Tanzania, she is fairly engaging in her lectures.  Yet, I have noticed that she doesn’t follow through with each student, and she may not realize that many of her students are left behind.  After observing one lecture, she abruptly left the room, leaving the students to answer a question on the board regarding material that she had not quite covered.  Out of curiosity, I stayed in the room to help them.  I walked around to each student, following along with the text in each student’s notebook as I instructed him or her to read an answer out loud.  It was clear that, out of 29 students in the classroom, only one understood the content and the language enough to write a reasonable answer to her question.  This classroom, I learned later, is the “Stream C” class of Form I.  These students are described by their own teachers as “dull” and “slow learners.” So, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy – they tend to be dull, slow learners with teachers who do not fully believe in their potential.

There are several facets of the Tanzanian education system that frustrate me, and this is one of them.  I planned to address this in the first lecture of my internship.  Today, I taught a lecture about the Cell Theory and the components of cells in “Stream A” – the class of higher achievers who understand more English than their peers.  I spoke slowly and clearly, prompting students to apply their previous knowledge to explain this topic.  At first, students were reluctant to contribute – probably resulting from not being accustomed to expressing their opinions, as well as not understanding my diction completely.  However, within 30 minutes into the lecture, my classroom was lively.  Students felt freer to answer questions, and would repeat my words loudly and confidently when I asked them to.  They listened attentively.  When I faced them, I saw students sharing pens and desks, as is common in Tanzanian schools.  A heavy downpour started about halfway through our lesson, and many students shifted to move out of the reach of the open-air windows that lined the classroom.  I struggled to make my voice heard over the pounding rain and howling winds.  I picked their brains throughout the lesson as we carefully drew and labeled diagrams.

At the end of the lecture, I handed out cards I had created with a role for each student.  Each student was to pretend to be a certain part of the cell, so we could demonstrate that each and every part of the cell is essential to life.  Amid giggles and shy glances, it took much longer than I had anticipated for them to agree to act out their roles.  The final challenge was getting my timid girls to link arms with the boys, who outnumbered them three to one, to form the “plasma membrane” of our human cell.  The students seemed to understand that each student in their classroom (including Bakari, the smallest student in the front row, with thick glasses, and a large cyst in the back of his head) was necessary to create a functioning cell.  The students left me with many kind words, and I cannot wait to be in front of the blackboard again next week.  Today, it is true – Mimi ni mwalimu.