In Africa, it's not abnormal to go to a function that says (on the invitation) that it will start at 11:00 AM, only to find things don't start moving until 2:30 PM, and go far past the original ending time. Or even when people say, "I'm coming!" it could mean that they are indeed on their way, or they just got off the couch in preparation to bathe and prepare to get going. In general, things move slowly, events develop organically, not on a schedule, and people aren't always rushing to catch things. African time. When things move swiftly, my Ugandan friends jokingly refer to this as "American Time." At college today, it was American time all day, and it was exhausting! Let's begin with my arrival to college:
I arrived earlyish (eight thirty?) anticipating a meeting. I strolled casually, greeted everyone, and prepared to take tea. On my way into the staff room, my supervisor, the Deputy Principal, calls me over for a chat. Knowing that a chat with Deputy takes anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours, I nodded a yes and went in to first take tea. Immy and I were chatting away and dipping our mandazi into our chai when I got a phonecall--it was Deputy, calling from his office. I hadn't seen him but three minutes before.
"Yes, sir," I say.
"Yes, Mary, when you have a moment, a quick word..."
"Absolutely." I couldn't imagine what was so urgent, but I did a very American thing--I took my drink to go! Know that this is something you never do in Uganda--drink on the move. I reached his office and greeted him as usual. I couldn't remember what mundane things we were talking about--something about student files or materials, yadda yadda, but I noticed that he was checking his wall clock about every 20 seconds. Additionally, he had transformed his usual soliloquies to very brief cliff notes. I almost felt uncomfortable as to how rushed he was. During our chat, the DOS came in, talking about mobilizing staff for the burial. This was new information for me--who died?
"Mr. Mwanja used to be a Deputy Principal here, his mother passed away," Deputy explained, between exchanges with the DOS. It was decided that we couldn't sacrifice our staff meeting just to be to the burial on time. Something I do admire about the culture here is that it would be abhorrent if the co-workers of an individual failed to mobilize and attend events like Kwanjulas (introductions), weddings, or burials, even if it's the burial of a former employee's mother. I feel like work-people do not involve themselves so much in each others personal lives in the US--which, I feel, is a good and bad thing.
"Mary, may I register you to attend the burial?" The DOS ask, pen at the ready.
"Absolutely, I'm there." I said. My initial intention was to just go for the experience of a burial function in Uganda. I hadn't realized I had more of a connection to the deceased.
Immediately from Deputy's office, we went back to the staff room, and the meeting began. The Principal himself introduced the meeting by saying it was to be kept short, an hour at the most. Usually, the principal hums a high-pitched, unidentifiable tune, and plays with his reading glasses--none of that today, he was all business. However, I was doubtful; our last "brief" meeting went over by an hour, and our record longest meeting went over by something like four hours. He bypassed reading the minutes from the previous meeting and we got right into the nitty-gritty. Supervision of schools--which schools were being seen and which weren't, and our solutions to chronic problems. It was decided that three subjects would give demonstration lessons tomorrow, starting at 9:00 AM. I volunteered to do science, and made sure my HOD and other science tutor were on board to help me plan. At exactly 11:30 AM, the Principal apologized, closed the meeting and left us still discussing transport to the burial, meaning that we had only gone overtime by 1/2 hour (which is pretty darn impressive). I felt like everyone else was in a hurry and I was the slow one. Once the beans arrived, we all ate as fast as humanly possible, and then boarded the taxi on standby.
I now can't remember the name of the place, but I can tell you it was near a Eucalyptus plantation on the way to Buwenge (which is probably the worst road in Uganda. But it's being paved...slowly slowly...) I felt like a man could run faster than our taxi was going, but on we went, putt putt putt. We reached the place, and we were some of the last to arrive, and in fact the whole function had already been going for sometime (all before 1:30!) The compound was nice--a brick wall with tall, metal spires, grass, trees, and about five large tents to shade the 200 or so attendees. The usual plastic garden chairs made up the seating, and most of the women were in gomezis of all colors (but a few had all-black gomezis). A white coffin was in the middle of the compound, trimmed in gold with small engravings. All coffins here are closed at burials, but there is sometimes a window so you may see the face. When we came in, we heard a few words from a speaker, then family members came up when introduced to lay flower arrangements on the coffin. In was then I realized whose burial I was at; Mr. Mwanja is a very nice man whom I met at several workshops and other PTC-related functions. He never fails to greet me at workshops and ask me about Wanyange. I also see him at the college from time to time. I saw him lay a large arrangement of plastic-wrapped flowers, and then nearly collapse onto his cousins who were escorting him up as he sobbed, and the weight of the situation hit me--this isn't some cultural museum I'm viewing, this was Mr. Mwanja's mother. It reminded me of when I went to my grandmother's funeral and I saw my dad cry for the first time in my life--the combination of Mr. Mwanja sobbing and thinking about my grandma's funeral made me cry.
The rest of the ceremony went quickly--one moment, I was standing in their garden, listening to the Lusoga prayer over the grave, as the granddaughter was wailing in front of me. I dropped a handful of dirt on the coffin, and before I knew it we were back in the taxi, me with Madam Enyuk's baby, Gabrielle, falling asleep in my arms. We had all made our exit before they served food, which I thought was just a shame because it looked like they had a real feast prepared.
Back at the college, I was still on American time. I sat with the HOD of science, Nora, and we planned out the demonstration lesson. From there, I had to collect the materials and discuss the schedule for Saturday with DOS and Deputy. I then grabbed my milk, rushed home, (had my nails painted) and sat down to type this. It's now 7:34, I have to write out my lesson plan on chart paper, finish a Lusoga "Months of the Year" calendar, prepare the Year Ones checkout book and drink my tea. Tea first. I don't think I can live like this, on American time...
Friday, March 23, 2012
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Do you fear me now?
Today was a regular day, but according to feedback from my American readers, even regular days are interesting to read about.
I finally got to join in on the orientation of first years. Immy and I had the task of orienting about the library and ICT. We thought this time would be best spent talking about rules and procedures. To do this, we did some skits of non-examples. Immy and Nora (HOD Science) pretended to be bad students who came in the library loudly, disorganized books, shuffled their feet and dragged chairs all over the place. We added Mr. Oketch, SST, who unbuttoned his shirt and stuffed books in, then left. Oh goodness the students laughed. My role was being the pissed-off librarian. It was difficult because Mr. Oketch was hilarious, I couldn't help but smile. I talked as slowly as possible, and I think it was effective, because the students responded quickly.
After that, I was putting some things away in the library. In front of the library, and down the hill a bit, is the field. The students from MM Wanyange Primary School were there practicing for the upcoming inter-house athletics competition. MM Wanyange is my zone school, so I've had a lot of time to counsel these student teachers. I was saddened to see that they were carrying around sticks. They weren't using them, but it's hard to herd 100's of kids when the certified teachers have sticks and they don't. Or so was their excuse. I nonchalantly walked over (at this point, the Wanyange children are pretty used to me) and I collected the sticks, one by one. After they were released, the student teachers came to the library to greet me. I explained that they can't even be seen carrying sticks, because it's like holding a loaded gun--holding it leads to using it. Also, if their alternative methods are effective, they don't even need the threat of holding a stick. I picked out one particularly nice stick--it was about a meter long and the width of a thumb. I joked with the student teachers, "Ah, so children will fear me now, ay?"
One replied, "Ah but madam, they know you don't cane."
I carried it home with me, twirling it around and around. One primary school student flinched when I turned to say hello--conditioned to fear sticks! Even though 'they know you don't cane.' Hmm...
On my way home, I stopped at Stephen's furniture stand. I need him to make this odd contraption that I'll use to make straight lines on the chalkboard. More about that later. Anywho, while talking to him, I was playing with my stick, not thinking much about it. While I was waiting for Stephen, a little boy, not more than maybe two years old, toddles over. He sees me, his eyes get big, and he goes into the wood shop. I continue to twirl my stick, waiting to explain my odd chalkboard thingamajig. The boy toddles back, dragging a panga that's as tall as he is. It was quite a sight.
"Ah! This boy wants to kill me!" I say, backing up.
The adults around start laughing, as someone took it away from him. I still don't know if it was me being a mzungu, or if it was the stick.
I finally got to join in on the orientation of first years. Immy and I had the task of orienting about the library and ICT. We thought this time would be best spent talking about rules and procedures. To do this, we did some skits of non-examples. Immy and Nora (HOD Science) pretended to be bad students who came in the library loudly, disorganized books, shuffled their feet and dragged chairs all over the place. We added Mr. Oketch, SST, who unbuttoned his shirt and stuffed books in, then left. Oh goodness the students laughed. My role was being the pissed-off librarian. It was difficult because Mr. Oketch was hilarious, I couldn't help but smile. I talked as slowly as possible, and I think it was effective, because the students responded quickly.
After that, I was putting some things away in the library. In front of the library, and down the hill a bit, is the field. The students from MM Wanyange Primary School were there practicing for the upcoming inter-house athletics competition. MM Wanyange is my zone school, so I've had a lot of time to counsel these student teachers. I was saddened to see that they were carrying around sticks. They weren't using them, but it's hard to herd 100's of kids when the certified teachers have sticks and they don't. Or so was their excuse. I nonchalantly walked over (at this point, the Wanyange children are pretty used to me) and I collected the sticks, one by one. After they were released, the student teachers came to the library to greet me. I explained that they can't even be seen carrying sticks, because it's like holding a loaded gun--holding it leads to using it. Also, if their alternative methods are effective, they don't even need the threat of holding a stick. I picked out one particularly nice stick--it was about a meter long and the width of a thumb. I joked with the student teachers, "Ah, so children will fear me now, ay?"
One replied, "Ah but madam, they know you don't cane."
I carried it home with me, twirling it around and around. One primary school student flinched when I turned to say hello--conditioned to fear sticks! Even though 'they know you don't cane.' Hmm...
On my way home, I stopped at Stephen's furniture stand. I need him to make this odd contraption that I'll use to make straight lines on the chalkboard. More about that later. Anywho, while talking to him, I was playing with my stick, not thinking much about it. While I was waiting for Stephen, a little boy, not more than maybe two years old, toddles over. He sees me, his eyes get big, and he goes into the wood shop. I continue to twirl my stick, waiting to explain my odd chalkboard thingamajig. The boy toddles back, dragging a panga that's as tall as he is. It was quite a sight.
"Ah! This boy wants to kill me!" I say, backing up.
The adults around start laughing, as someone took it away from him. I still don't know if it was me being a mzungu, or if it was the stick.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Supervision of Teachers, Term One
Oh my how time flies. I felt like I blogged just yesterday, but as my helpful blogging website tells me, it’s already mid-March, and I haven’t even blogged once this month. Student teaching began this week. Here was my week, roughly; Monday-staff meeting to kick off school practice (scheduled for 10:00 AM, started at 11:30). I had stomach problems, so when they began re-reading the minutes from the prior meeting, I peaced out. Tuesday--we all were to begin supervising starting with our zone schools. My zone school is Wanyange Primary (just like last term). I was off to a good start--stomach problems had subsided for a bit, and I got some good supervisions in. Then, coming back from lunch, I was trying to step up onto the veranda and just ate it, rolling my good ankle (if you did the math, that means I have two bad ankles). The primary students started to crowd around, saying “mzungu fell!” The student teachers also began gathering, as well as the regular teachers. I felt like such an idiot. Thank goodness some teacher scattered the crowd and got someone on first aid. I was bedridden for the rest of the day, and even on Wednesday (when the stomach thing returned) I stayed home. My supervisor interprets my absence like this: one day out means I’m near death and need some medicine. Two days out, and I’m probably already dead. Three days? The police are looking for my supervisor to explain my death. My counterpart kindly insisted on coming over to check on me, as well as mop my house and cook me lunch AND dinner (funded by the college-they wanted to make sure I wouldn’t starve). On Thursday, I had enough strength to work a full day, and supervise my students at Wairaka Primary. My supervisor’s mind was finally at ease. Today, I speedily supervised most of the students at St. Benedicts, then reported back to college by lunchtime.
After doing several supervisions in a row, I begin to notice trends in my student's teaching. I jot down the general trends, then I meet with them in a large group. I’ve learned that when I meet with the students about things I want them to work on, I make sure to start by mentioning things they are doing well, and acknowledging great ideas. I then move to areas that need improvement.
I should mention now that my student teachers are pure beginners-it's their first time teaching. I keep telling myself not to overwhelm them and go easy.
Instead of just explaining what they should do better, I usually give them a real example through demonstration. Here’s a situation I’ve been seeing a lot: student teachers go into the lesson looking to just relay information. To do this, they have the pupils brainstorm. If they’re teaching about garden tools, they just keep asking the pupils “what are garden tools? What do we do with them?” In one school, I saw this lesson, and the students had no idea. In another school, the students were way beyond this material, and not only could name the garden tool but what it does and what it looks like. Now, in the first case, the student teacher should have been brainstorming with new information--he should be teaching that information. To counsel them, I pretended to be a teacher, and I wanted them to tell me the 50 capitals of the states of America. When they gave me wrong answers, I belittled them and complained of how dull my class was. They got the point--the students don’t know the new information, that’s what they are teaching. In the second case, I challenged them to elaborate on the required material, and even go to the field for a practical lesson (which actually they could do in both cases).
Another overall challenge I’m facing are student teachers who are completely ill-equipped when it comes to finding alternative methods of class control. Alternative? Alternative to what, Mary? That would be alternative to caning, or as I’ve seen in some cases, slapping in the face, upside the head, smacking on the arm or even just threatening with a stick. I now carry around the definition of corporal punishment, copied from a book provided by Raising Voices, as well as all the laws in Uganda that are against caning, child abuse, etc. Any time I see a student act questionably towards pupils, or even threatening with a stick, I pull out the definition and have them read it to themselves. Then I tell them, “Now that you know the definition, I don’t want to see you doing it ever again.” I also take time to point out that, according to Ugandan law, they could be jailed up to three years. (Does ANYONE go to jail for three years for this? No, but it’s enough to scare the naive PTC students). Our student teachers from the Jinja PTC are not allowed to cane, even if it’s the preferred method of classroom control and discipline used by the regular teachers and administration. All that said, I feel like I’m the only tutor that is really observant and strict on this, as well as the only tutor that can really give them alternative options and techniques. I’ve started with my personal students--each tutor is delegated 10 personal students to guide and counsel. I assigned them homework to write up a behavioral expectations plan for their classroom. We’ll see if they follow through. Additionally, we read through some literature about what effective discipline means (timely, consistent and instructive not just punitive). It took a good 20 minutes to read through a college-level textbook paragraph...but it was worth it! My next target for guiding and counseling about alternative management strategies will be my zone school students. My goal is that I end the term with the most knowledgable students when it comes to classroom management.
In other news...it stopped raining, so it’s crazy dry and hot again. According to my preferred source of news (Facebook,) people back home are so excited about the warm, spring weather. It’s hard to remember what that felt like, coming out of the winter months, pale, lethargic and just dying for some sunshine. Another neighbor had a baby, which makes a total of seven new babies that were brought into the world while I was in Uganda. Obviously, there haven’t been only seven babies born in all of Uganda, but these seven I’ve known personally. First, the triplets from the neighbor I didn’t know, then Sarah, my immediate next-door neighbor, then Kagoya down the way from us, then Behna, the school secretary, then Madam Enyuk, an art-and-language tutor and most recently another Sarah, who’s the cousin-sister of Tagaba. What’s the question I always get when I get to hold the babies? “Mary, when are you having yours?”
After doing several supervisions in a row, I begin to notice trends in my student's teaching. I jot down the general trends, then I meet with them in a large group. I’ve learned that when I meet with the students about things I want them to work on, I make sure to start by mentioning things they are doing well, and acknowledging great ideas. I then move to areas that need improvement.
I should mention now that my student teachers are pure beginners-it's their first time teaching. I keep telling myself not to overwhelm them and go easy.
Instead of just explaining what they should do better, I usually give them a real example through demonstration. Here’s a situation I’ve been seeing a lot: student teachers go into the lesson looking to just relay information. To do this, they have the pupils brainstorm. If they’re teaching about garden tools, they just keep asking the pupils “what are garden tools? What do we do with them?” In one school, I saw this lesson, and the students had no idea. In another school, the students were way beyond this material, and not only could name the garden tool but what it does and what it looks like. Now, in the first case, the student teacher should have been brainstorming with new information--he should be teaching that information. To counsel them, I pretended to be a teacher, and I wanted them to tell me the 50 capitals of the states of America. When they gave me wrong answers, I belittled them and complained of how dull my class was. They got the point--the students don’t know the new information, that’s what they are teaching. In the second case, I challenged them to elaborate on the required material, and even go to the field for a practical lesson (which actually they could do in both cases).
Another overall challenge I’m facing are student teachers who are completely ill-equipped when it comes to finding alternative methods of class control. Alternative? Alternative to what, Mary? That would be alternative to caning, or as I’ve seen in some cases, slapping in the face, upside the head, smacking on the arm or even just threatening with a stick. I now carry around the definition of corporal punishment, copied from a book provided by Raising Voices, as well as all the laws in Uganda that are against caning, child abuse, etc. Any time I see a student act questionably towards pupils, or even threatening with a stick, I pull out the definition and have them read it to themselves. Then I tell them, “Now that you know the definition, I don’t want to see you doing it ever again.” I also take time to point out that, according to Ugandan law, they could be jailed up to three years. (Does ANYONE go to jail for three years for this? No, but it’s enough to scare the naive PTC students). Our student teachers from the Jinja PTC are not allowed to cane, even if it’s the preferred method of classroom control and discipline used by the regular teachers and administration. All that said, I feel like I’m the only tutor that is really observant and strict on this, as well as the only tutor that can really give them alternative options and techniques. I’ve started with my personal students--each tutor is delegated 10 personal students to guide and counsel. I assigned them homework to write up a behavioral expectations plan for their classroom. We’ll see if they follow through. Additionally, we read through some literature about what effective discipline means (timely, consistent and instructive not just punitive). It took a good 20 minutes to read through a college-level textbook paragraph...but it was worth it! My next target for guiding and counseling about alternative management strategies will be my zone school students. My goal is that I end the term with the most knowledgable students when it comes to classroom management.
In other news...it stopped raining, so it’s crazy dry and hot again. According to my preferred source of news (Facebook,) people back home are so excited about the warm, spring weather. It’s hard to remember what that felt like, coming out of the winter months, pale, lethargic and just dying for some sunshine. Another neighbor had a baby, which makes a total of seven new babies that were brought into the world while I was in Uganda. Obviously, there haven’t been only seven babies born in all of Uganda, but these seven I’ve known personally. First, the triplets from the neighbor I didn’t know, then Sarah, my immediate next-door neighbor, then Kagoya down the way from us, then Behna, the school secretary, then Madam Enyuk, an art-and-language tutor and most recently another Sarah, who’s the cousin-sister of Tagaba. What’s the question I always get when I get to hold the babies? “Mary, when are you having yours?”
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