"You must do the thing which you think you cannot do"

The full quote is:

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.”

-Eleanor Roosevelt

There have been times over the last 2 weeks when I thought that I could not do this. It even came to crying and wondering if I should even be a teacher at all. But as Eleanor reminds me, I must do this. I must do this because I know how complicated teaching can be, I know how detrimental it can be when a teacher fails, and I care enough about teaching to beat myself up when I don’t achieve perfection.

I’ve been on a roller coaster for the last two weeks. There have been incredible highs and incredible lows, so I’m going to do the most teacher-y thing I could do and present them as my “roses” and “thorns.”

The Thorns

As a teacher, you have to anticipate as many problems as you can possibly think of. What if a child doesn’t know the definition of a word you repeatedly use in your instructions? How do you have an absent student learn the same things as the students who were there for a lesson that required acting scenarios or observing live animals? What if the students end up blankly staring at you when you ask a question? So it’s frustrating to encounter problems that you never knew could exist. For example, how do you continue your lesson when it’s pouring rain on the tin roof and no one can hear a thing?

One day, I brought in chicken eggs for a lesson on reproduction in birds. I had 3 stations where students could come up and observe the cracked eggs in bowls. I asked them to draw what they saw. More than half stayed at their seats, and almost all automatically drew a diagram that they had studied in prior grades. It had the yolk perfectly in the center, with the chalaza (squiggly lines that hold the yolk in place) perfectly on either side. “Is this what you see here?” I asked, “Do you see two lines like that? I don’t!” Eventually some of them caught on and began drawing what they actually saw. But I was left so perplexed. Why was this a foreign concept? Matt has had similar experiences in his P4 classroom. When you ask the students to draw something in science, they want to copy a diagram. Diagrams can be useful, but not when they cloud your view of reality.

My students were also unfamiliar with the concept of an opinion. It’s understandable that these students, still mastering English, wouldn’t know the definition of words like fact, fiction, and opinion, but I did not expect that they would be incapable of expressing opinions. I asked them to write an answer to “What was the most interesting thing you have learned about birds, and why?” and I mostly got a list of the topics we covered. If I got any opinions, they were poorly justified.

Similar issues arose time and time again. They did not know the definition of “wonder,” nor the concept of asking a question about something you did not know the answer to. They were bewildered by the task of discussing something with a partner. They are mostly unaware of how to ask a question to clarify directions given, which is incredibly difficult, since I can’t read their minds. One student, Benet, has been consistently saving my butt by asking great questions that reveal an essential lack of understanding. More students have started to catch on. And I’ve been working on re-phrasing things, because they are prepared to copy everything word for word without understanding any of it, so now it is easier to ask students to repeat the directions I give them.

Constant vigilance. I must constantly re-work certain skills, like re-phrasing things, into my lessons. Every step of my lessons must be carefully considered: will I have the resources for that? How will I know they understood the material? And then, things just happen. A new student arrives after 2 weeks of instruction and I have to catch him up (but it’s okay because Felex is adorable). A cooperating teacher does not teach what he said he would teach. I have only 45 minutes instead of 60. My students are missing because lunch ran late, they have malaria, or they just decided to go to the bathroom for 20 minutes. There’s a new problem every hour, it seems. 

After having students do a skit based on the road sign they were given, I hung them up in the room. They are almost all destroyed already.

Our posters of different types of birds, made by inferring their habitat and diet from their feet and beaks

The Roses

But, what’s nice about unpredictability is that great things are so much greater as surprises. I never expected to discover Thank you Madame” at the end of their papers or encounter tragically hilarious spelling errors, such as in “GOD BELLS YOU.” I did not anticipate to be told so often that I was welcome in their classroom. I did not expect applause when I announced that I had bought journals for the students to use for writing. During lunch one day, I walked past three of my girls eating posho and beans, and I certainly did not expect them to say, “Madame, come and sit with us, and we’ll share.”

There have been some really funny moments, too. Once, I was hanging up a poster of the male reproductive organ (not my creation- I was just moving it), and the walls are really dusty, so that, combined with my cold, caused me to start coughing pretty badly. One of my students was standing behind me, and he solemnly said, “I heard the white people die from the cough.” Turning around, I saw his wide eyes, so I could tell he was sincerely concerned and not being intentionally creepy, but I couldn’t help laughing.

I was pleasantly surprised during many science lessons; at their roaring laughter while watching a male Bird of Paradise perform a mating dance, at their disgust with a picture of a newborn kangaroo, and at their diligence and success while searching through non-fiction books for information on certain animals. A few stories from the first journal prompt I gave– asking them to describe a tree house they would build– were surprisingly creative. My favorite detailed a gold and silver tree house which was later bought out by President Obama.

My most successful assignment thus far was probably a journal entry in which I asked them to explain the biggest problem in their community. I allowed them to choose what “community” meant to them, ranging from their school to their country. This was something the students were familiar with and certainly had opinions about, since they live with complex and difficult problems on a daily basis. For the most part, they were even able to analyze the cause of these problems. Perhaps most importantly, though, I learned so much about their lives. Some problems included: poverty, cholera, AIDS, disease in general, lack of rain, drinking and smoking/drug abuse, lack of sanitation, lateness to school (because of the distance between homes and the school), selfish government leaders, floods, a lack of ports in Uganda for trade (I was proud of that one), and– most commonly– theft. I was surprised both at the frequency of “theft” as an answer, and the variety (I was scared of everyone writing the same thing). Of course, the fact that there are so many problems to choose from is really depressing. But the assignment went well and provided a great transition into talking about how communities attempt to be perfect, which led to reading The Giver (read it if you haven’t!). 

To illustrate the changes I must make to read this book aloud...

Anyways, I still have a lot of work to do. I still have to work out a regular time to play games like Boom Chicka Boom Boom (shout out to WCAC members), which they found so amusing. I have to get them to be able to describe places, thoughts, and feelings. I have to make them at least begin to question their notion that lawbreakers deserve to be beaten to death. I have to teach them about using punctuation marks at the end of sentences. And it’s going to be really hard. But I’m beginning to see some changes in my students, and in myself, and that makes all the difference to me. The roses are blooming, and I don’t mind if, while pruning them, I prick my finger a few times.

Fun fact: it was Cassie's birthday this weekend. We ordered a vanilla & chocolate cake and got this graham-cracker-tasting cake with raisins inside and a layer of rock-hard frosting. It tasted like s'mores.

Kasese Life

Cheesin' with some goats

I’ve been meaning to post for a while now, and actually have had 3 different post ideas in mind, but I’ve been so so busy this week! I’m used to being busy, and expected it, but I guess I was just surprised by the way it played out.

Most of my busyness can be attributed to my scrambling with lesson planning. I tried to be really thorough in considering my lesson plans for the first week, so I spent a lot of time thinking about that instead of planning weeks in advance. Consequently, this whole week I’ve been scrambling to prepare things the night before, even though I know the general lesson outline. It’s been exhausting. I go to school, get home by 4:30 or 5, often have to go to town for food or teaching supplies, then cook, eat, and clean up, and by the time all is said and done I have a couple hours before I need to go to sleep. And for some reason, I can’t seem to do that too well. I just don’t feel well rested even if I approach 7 ½ hours of sleep.

I hope to get a lot more planning done this weekend; I know I’ve got to just hunker down. But it will be hard because it’s Cassie’s birthday tomorrow, and we’ve got plans to swim and even eat cake!

Anyways, this post will be about my life outside of teacher-dom, because teachers do in fact have lives. Though I’ve been thinking about how privileged I am to have that life– a little distance from the school and an adventurous weekend activity. Many of the teachers at Rwentutu board there and teach classes on Saturdays. They are on duty from 6 or 7 in the morning until 10 at night. Their dedication is much greater than mine. A student of mine (Deborah) asked me what I do on the weekends here, and I felt guilty telling her about hiking and visiting the Equator and plans for swimming and exploring Queen Elizabeth National Park. Even though the Equator line is about a 10 minute drive from the school, most of my students have never been there, and they definitely can’t afford to visit a national park. Most of them don’t know how to swim, either. It makes me sad to think that some of my students may never visit a foreign country, or even know their country very well. Or that they might never know the bliss of floating in water, basking in the sun.

Visiting the Equator line with the head teacher, our driver, and our neighbor/a nursery teacher

But then again, they know so much that I don’t. I’ve led a life of constant change, filled with different places and faces, and I’ve always had options– for universities, friends, clothes I wear, homes I inhabit, and even for the foods I can eat. Here, my students eat posho (maize meal) and beans every day for lunch and dinner. Except Sunday, when beef is added. Many board there and spend the entire school year on the same school grounds (or near). They live in a house split into 2 bedrooms, 1 for girls and the other for boys, with perhaps 30 others, often sharing beds. They have their uniforms and a small trunk of personal items. They go to class and chapel and play games. I had to stop myself from asking, “that’s it?”

How do they know how to be so content? I often wonder this as I watch them playing games like netball, football (soccer), and some sort of dodgeball game, the same games they play every day. I’ve had such a rigorous schedule for the last few years, usually rushing to class and work and stressing over large assignments, that it is hard for me to imagine such a carefree life.  

Hopefully this is something I’ll become more comfortable with as I spend more time here. I already can feel myself changing, becoming more relaxed, more conscious of my privilege, and more at-home here. There’s a solid part of me that knows this will never be my home, but I’ve definitely gotten into a routine here. I know where to look for things I need in town, I know the route to get to the school like the back of my hand, and, most of all, I know people here. I know people’s personalities and stories. It’s weird to think that I’ve only been at the school for 2 weeks and I feel like I’ve known my cooperating teachers forever. I often have to remind myself–I’m in Africa right now, or I’m in Uganda- these are the mountains forming the Western border, or I’m a teacher… in Uganda.

I’m certainly reminded by people outside of the school community. The students have become more used to our presence and they, along with the staff, now know us a little better, so they don’t stare as much. But anywhere else, it’s still a parade. It’s particularly tough when you’re just a little irritated or a little tired, and it escalates with demands from men or point-blank stares. However, I’ve come to realize that that’s just what people around here do– they stare. Not just at us, but anyone or anything that is different. Any time there’s a new student, a teacher chiding a child, or a vehicle pulling into the school grounds, there’s a crowd of stare-rs (adults included). It makes me uncomfortable because of the cultural association I have with staring. I never thought that the old “it’s rude to stare” would have such a strong effect on me.

I’m also reminded by getting pulled over in the car extremely frequently. I will never get used to that. The traffic police, immigration enforcement, or army (I don’t even know who it is because there are so many different types of unfamiliar uniforms) will just be posted on the side of the road and will flag you to pull over. Apparently it’s just to check the car’s safety and registration. But they look in the car and ask you where you’re going. We’ve even been asked to see our passports. I’d been trying to identify the source of my discomfort: Was I just used to being pulled over as being equated to being in trouble? To the strict adherence to personal freedoms in the U.S.? But then I realized, gee, this would be really problematic if there were a corrupt government. Here are armed forces, literally armed with rifles, who have the power to pull you over at any time and demand your identification and destination. What happens when a regime becomes invasive and violent, or ethnic tensions erupt, as has happened so many times in African countries? I’ve never been truly scared, though; they usually wave us on because we are bazungu and I’m mostly irritated at them wasting our time. The only time I was truly scared here was when we saw a massive convoy of UN troops. There were at least 20 tanks and cargo trucks, all in an orderly procession. Doreen and Samson hooted and hollered at the novelty of such a sight, but I was concerned; what kind of conflict could merit such a response from the UN? I thought back to the Rwandan genocides of the 90s and the meager international assistance. Was this assistance, or just training or something? I still don’t know and can’t find an answer, but I know that there are conflicts in bordering countries, so perhaps they were just en route.

But otherwise, I am adjusting to life here. I have accepted that my feet will never be clean (not until April). I’ve realized how strange it is that Americans view running water as an essential commodity, forgetting that throughout most of human history, people actually had to fetch water. And that it’s not an endless source. The water often goes out here because there isn’t enough to distribute throughout the whole city, so it comes on in certain neighborhoods at certain times, and will until it rains more. I now see it as a blessing if it is on, but never get too excited because I can’t know when it will go out again. Instead we take advantage of it and shower, wash dishes, and bottle some. Electricity is also fickle. It’s only bothersome when it is out for several days and the hot fridge allows our food to go bad, or when my computer is dead and I can’t use it for lesson planning. Oh, and it’s really hot in my bedroom without the fan running. I’m currently writing until I get tired enough to fall asleep in the heat.

I’ve been trying to be an observer, and not too much of a critic, of Ugandan society. I’ve seen the news, been to church, immersed myself in a school, one of the most crucial modes of cultural maintenance, and I even bought a newspaper this week. It’s not enough to be an expert, but I have enough to start making some conclusions. Educators talk about learners with special needs (“slow learners”) as if it were a new phenomenon (and Enoch’s commentary on wheelchair-accessible entries echoes the same feeling). Anti-gay laws are being signed into action and enforced. Religion is a central part of society and not belonging to it is unthinkable (I’ll talk more about that later). Looking presentable, with modest clothing– and stricter guidelines for women– is strongly emphasized. I feel so bad even thinking this, but it sort of reminds me of the 50s in the U.S.

 

What a headline. (Museveni is the president.)

I, by no means, mean to suggest that Uganda is “behind” the U.S., that there is an evolution of societies, that things are “backward” here, or anything of the sort. I’m simply reminded of a time in my country’s history when certain deviations from societal norms were not as accepted and similar social rules were in place. I happen to think that outlawing a sexual orientation is wrong, and that perhaps the public understanding of individuals with disabilities is underdeveloped and misunderstood, so I would not hide my approval for improvement in those areas. But I am not entitled to say how Uganda should change, if at all, and what is best for its people. But it’s interesting to think about.

Anyways, I need my sleep for another sacred weekend. I will write more about teaching soon. Thanks for reading! Here are some more pictures:

So we went hiking for 3 and a half hours in the Rwenzori Mountains last weekend.

We told Samson we could pay to go to the Rwenzori National Park, but he said going up another (free) path would be better. It was very cool to talk to people who lived along the path, and it was certainly more adventurous. The mountain in the distance is a part of the National Park. It was the only mountain we could see that was not cleared for farmland.

She was suddenly shy....

This was one of our 2 tour guides for the whole way. We often lost them because they ran barefoot down steep, sharp hills, but we always found them again.

Madame

I am now called Madame Nichole. It’s adorable, and so fantastically French.

some sort of assembly happening before school

the school yard, rarely empty

So, I’ve finished a full week of teaching. Monday feels worlds apart from now and I’m unsure of how to explain everything that’s happened. I feel as though I’ve done and learned more in this week than I have in the last two semesters combined. In practicum, I’d spend a lot of time planning a lesson, which I’d type up and prove how it met certain standards and helped meet every learner’s needs, so on and so forth. I had the time to plan a perfect lesson, but it usually didn’t go perfectly, and I usually wouldn’t get the opportunity to do much follow up. I couldn’t plan whole units and work to achieve long-term goals like developing students’ critical thinking or writing skills.

Here, I basically have two subjects until the beginning of April. All mine. I have to fill out what they call a “Scheme of Work” book, and my co-teachers will make sure that I’ve filled it out, with my learning objectives, comments, etc., but no one demands to see my lesson plans or limits what I can do. In a way, it’s a little frightening that no one is really checking, but the freedom feels so good. I have to follow the curriculum, but I can do it however I want! Of course, King James (the headmaster) and Erasto (the head teacher) have told us to make sure students have real comprehension, that they are gaining skills as well as content knowledge, and to be resourceful and use hands-on learning as much as possible, but that’s what I wanted to do anyways.

I’ve also experienced unexpected freedom with other classroom things I’ve wanted to do. Most recently, I set up a “question bank” for science, where students can ask questions like “how do birds fly?” I went over what makes a good question, but we’ll definitely have to practice before using it. I also had them ask questions for me to send home to the 7^th grade class in Madison where I’ll be teaching when I leave. Some were boring (“do you play football?”) they eventually came up with some interesting ones that will highlight the difference between the U.S. and Uganda (“Does your school have chapel?” “Do schoolchildren shave their heads?”). I hope to set up a somewhat consistent exchange between the two groups.

A good science research question is a level 2.

I also had a discussion about rules, because I wanted to discuss the purpose of rules and establish some that were worth having. The conversation didn’t go too well, because they are all about obeying authority figures at all times, but I’ll hopefully return to it in a more structured way. I did establish expectations for me as the teacher, though, which I think was pretty revolutionary to them. These are the expectations for students:

1.     Ask if you do not understand. (I told them they need to speak up if they don’t get what I’m saying)

2.     Ask permission before leaving the room. (The kids just up and leave all the time and wander around outside, which makes it hard to tell who was there for which part of your teaching)

3.     Do not laugh at others when they are wrong. (This is a huge problem)

4.     Do not copy others’ work. (This is also a huge problem; kids will write the same exact thing because they’re used to there being one exact answer, but it doesn’t make sense when you’re asking them their opinions or gauging understanding)

5.     Always try your best.

6.     Respect the person who is talking.

Anyways, these are the topics I’ll be teaching:

For science:

Animal Classification

Sound Energy

The Human Circulatory System

For English:

Safety on the road & traffic dangers

Debating

One topic kinda sticks out, doesn’t it? Yeah, I haven’t really been liking the “safety on the road” thing. I suppose vocabulary about driving is necessary, but I’ve been really struggling with how to teach it in an interesting way. I’ve been trying to just go with it, though, and give them many opportunities to read and write, because they definitely need more of that. I was also frustrated with the science curriculum’s disconnectedness; it follows a rotating pattern, so that next term, they will study plant classification, some other kind of energy, and then another human system (I think reproductive, glad I’m not there for that…). I asked my co-teacher if I could switch the order to make more sense, but he refused, which I was a little frustrated about since they had said the curriculum was flexible. But they’re all interesting topics so I’m excited.

I’ve had so much fun planning the science lessons because I love talking about animals. I’ve tried to make the format transition from the typical lecture style to a more hands-on approach, because I knew it would be a disaster if I tried something radically different right away. I basically lectured while talking about taxonomy, vertebrates/invertebrates, and cold/warm blooded-ness, but tried to build up class participation. Then I had them play a game (where they had to decide if “all mammals are vertebrates” or “all vertebrates are mammals,”) and I had them go outside for a lesson showing them how scientists identify an animal’s Class. I was nervous that they would disregard my instructions and just take off running and hang out the whole period. But I was so pleasantly surprised to find that they were just as productive outside as they were inside. It’s often a mess if you take U.S. middle schoolers outside, and I think this is because they get so few opportunities to actually be outside. They’re cooped up and forced to be in a certain place at a certain time, obeying the authority figures at all times, learning things they don’t want to learn. While the students here are mainly test-motivated, which is extremely problematic, they do have a great work ethic. And they are used to being outside, so they don’t see it as revolutionary. They’re outside for lunch, they get plenty of time to see their friends and play and no one is hovering over them, and they’re used to learning about things they see outdoors.

Oh yeahh drawin some goatsss

Oh yeah, drawin chickens, yeahh

So it was great to learn that I can trust my students to complete assignments and behave well, and I hope to take them outside frequently. But the assignment, like all assignments I’ve given this week, did not go perfectly. Some just wrote general characteristics about the animal they observed, not the specific characteristics scientists use to determine Class. Some simply labeled their animal, spewing tons of information they’ve learned from previous grades (one labeled the vulva on a goat). The whole issue I’ve had this week is not knowing whether the students aren’t understanding me because of my accent, or they don’t know what I expect because it’s so different from the learning they’ve experienced.

Here, it’s all about examinations. They take an examination at the end of each term to make sure they’ve retained the information, which is practice for the big test at the end of P7, which determines the future of their educational careers. So students have been trained to memorize and regurgitate; a student can give you a definition word for word and not have a clue what it means. I’ve seen and heard so many examples of students jumbling up the order of a definition and then getting completely thrown off– when asked the cause of an accident, some students mis-copied “He did not realise there was a roundabout because there was no signpost to indicate it” as “He did not realise there was indicator” or something similar. I want to say to them, just think! Does it make sense? But they don’t seem to understand when I ask them questions demanding higher levels of thinking… it’s like their little robot brains are saying “does-not-compute.”

I should say that not all teachers foster this kind of mentality. My students’ social studies and math classes are usually pretty engaging, and several teachers I’ve talked with want to encourage growth in multiple areas. The headmaster, King James, talked about the issue of information-spewing with us today, and expressed his desire for us to change the way these students are learning. His words, loosely quoted, ring so true: “A student will memorize all the ways in which you can keep a toilet sanitary, tell you exactly what to do, but you will visit his home and find that he has not done any of these things; the connection is just not there.” I have students who can tell you the political history of the East African Community, but who can barely write. When I asked them to tell a short story about what their favorite thing they ever learned was, I got one or two sentences from each of them, the best being about playing netball or learning that people fly planes, the worst reading “2 Paragraphs: 1. I got sick, 2. I lacked school fees” (that one really stumped me). I told them to give a little background about where and when they learned it, and some literally wrote the date they learned a topic in school.  I’ve come to expect writing that does not reflect the true intelligence of middle schoolers, but the writing I’ve seen so far is what I’d equate to about 2^nd grade.

So I have my work cut out for me. Without projectors, the internet (although we usually have access at home), printers/copiers, enough textbooks, or really any books besides the few I can scrounge up from the school library. So far, I’ve actually manged to be pretty resourceful I think, but the issue of resources plays out in many other ways. For example, King James wants us to co-teach with our cooperating teachers, mine happen to be the headmaster’s assistant and the head teacher, so they are both very busy. Besides, we do not have any scheduled time for planning within the school day, so I must plan at home and then have them jump in when they can while I’m teaching. They don’t have the resources to pay adequate staff members, so the teachers are overloaded. As another example, one of my students missed class one day, and I found him sitting in the shade afterwards. He told me he was suffering from malaria, but there was no money for medication.

There are probably more of my students who hide their afflictions, or their misunderstandings and personalities, but I just haven’t formed a connection with them yet. That is my biggest problem right now. I have 33 students (I think… I haven’t gotten a class register yet and the room is never the same collection of faces) and they range from 9 to 16 years old (again, I think). How do I get to know 33 students in 8 weeks’ time? Especially when they barely seem to understand me; all conversations I have with them are marked by ‘what’s and awkward silences. In class, I’ll sometimes ask a question and just get a blank stare back. I’ve made some connections elsewhere in the schoolyard– on Monday, we played the most hilariously awkward version of Duck Duck Goose with and taught the macarena to a group of little ones, and I consistently read books with P4 and P5 girls– but I haven’t made much progress with my tweenagers.

King James was encouraging, though, and explained that Ugandans are not typically very open at first. Apparently they like to observe and assess the situation first. By his estimation, my students are eyeing me up and assessing me first. They want to see what I’m all about, and eventually I’ll get more letters (3 girls wrote me adorable letters), more questions, more participation, more learning, and more friendships. While he was explaining this, though, I was laughing to myself, because I realized that I’m the same way. I like to assess a situation before I enter it. I like to sit back and observe my students so I can assess their learning needs and interests before I make my move. During the first week, I’d been frustrated because I had wanted to be an unnoticed observer, but that was impossible, as a white girl, foreign in every sense. And here we were, my students and I, both wearing our poker faces, unaware that we were playing the same game. So it looks like I’ll just have to bite the bullet– I’ll have to hike up my skirt and get at that netball. I’ll have to take the giggles in stride and ask them silly questions. I’ll have to just sit with them at lunch, no matter what they think. I’ll have to constantly smile. And in terms of language, I’ll have to constantly re-phrase and re-explain and assume nothing is common knowledge.

Also, I’m considering using a fake British accent for all lessons so that they can understand me better.

flag-raising: Canada, Uganda, Wisconsin & the local kingdom

All Pictures!

As promised, here is an all-picture post:

Our street

Doryn with some dead fish!

Mosque in Kasese

Typical street downtown Kasese

The market is an open space in the middle of this building

The market

Alex leading a parade

our way back home from downtown

A sort-of American breakfast: potatoes (with a jelly-like ketchup), french toast, eggs, bananas, and mangoes

view on our drive to school

driving up to the school

A Super Long Post About All That I've Thought About During The Last Week

So, I spent my first week at Rwentutu Christian School. It mostly was great, but things are always more complicated than that, so let me try to explain.

First, a bit of background: this is a private primary school, with three nursery classes (Baby & Middle are like preschool and Top is like Kindergarten), and P1 through P7 (1^st through 7^th grade). Each grade is one class. Apparently most public schools are understaffed and can have 75 students in one class, but this is a private school, so most classes are under 30 students (which I think is still a lot to handle). After P7, students take a national exam to determine their acceptance to secondary school, which is 6 years. They take another exam after the 4^th year, and then again for entrance into university. A professor at Makerere University told us that the curriculum and examinations essentially “filter out” students, since Uganda doesn’t have the capactity to send all children through the educational system. Anyways, the school has about 180 students, some of whom board there. It was started in 2007 with funds from Amos, a now Canadian professor and former Ugandan politician. We are living in his house, and behind us live his sister’s family. On the school property lives his brother Sam, the school groundskeeper, and his family, including his daughter Doreen, when she’s not living with us. It took me a while to piece together the family tree, ha. Many people are related at the school, which is maybe why there’s a fantastic sense of community there. Babies will wander around, but no one worries, because someone, probably older kids, will take care of them.

The first day was actually great. New students and their parents were coming to register and teachers were interviewing students to place them in the correct grade (what you know takes priority over how old you are here) or planning their curriculum for the next term. So there was no teaching, and we basically just hung out with kids. We played games, held babies, had girls braid our hair, and were taught some Lhukonzo. Most of the students I spent time with were P4 girls, who I knew I wouldn’t teach, so I was a little disappointed that I hadn’t gotten to know any of my potential students, but the school is so small that it’s good to establish relationships with other kids, too.

The second day, registration and interviewing continued, and even though classes started, it seemed like mass confusion. I first observed a P5 class, which I was disapointed to find was an unplanned review of material from P4, taken straight from the textbook and filled with errors. Over the next three days– the only three days we had to observe and base our placement decision off of– things continued to be haphazard and I had to push for teachers to actually be in class. I was frustrated by teachers arriving to class 20 minutes after students were ready and giving me the wrong information repeatedly.  I knew I had to be flexible, and some of my discomfort came from the fact that I am a very organized person, but most of my frustration came for the students’ sake. Here were 30 ready-to-learn students in their desks, students who would complete any task asked of them, who see how education is essential to changing their future, who walk sometimes an hour to get there (the school can’t afford a bus), whose families struggle to pay the school fees, and their teacher was not there.

I asked Doreen why the registration and interviewing couldn’t be held before school actually started (she’s the school bursar). She replied that they did have a few days designated for this purpose, but very few parents came. I asked why, were they just uninformed? “No, they do not want to have to pay for transport twice,” she replied, “because they already must pay to bus here, sometimes from very far away, to take their children on the first day, so they do not want to have to come here another day.” I felt so stupid. I hadn’t even considered that this would be an issue. So this is why everything has been so chaotic; teachers really needed to take care of administrative things first. And they hadn’t planned out the daily schedule or the lessons yet probably because of the same transportation issue. Though it still seems to me that teachers show up late and will often leave the class with work to copy from the blackboard after the first week, which I’m assuming from the students’ nonchalant acceptance of these conditions. I know that time is more elastic here and teachers cannot be blamed for their difference in pedagogy from mine, but I still want to be different. While I do want to be changed by this experience, I don’t think it’s necessary to change everything about yourself, and I hold my value of instructional time and pedagogy too dear.

I’ve realized how lucky I am, though, to have been able to shape that educational philosophy at a university full of resources and knowledge. Most of this realization came after a few conversations with a teacher at the school, who I will call Pauline. At first, I had a shamefully inexplicable dislike for her. She was disheveled, awkward, and didn’t seem to understand that I was there to observe, not to teach on my first day there. Then she told me that she too had been told the wrong information several times; she hadn’t prepared for this class’s lesson because she was told she’d be teaching the subject in 2 other grades. She was thrown off and desperate for my help. In later conversations, I realized that my dislike was really directed at the differences between us, which was unfair. “Do you like Africans?” she asked me. I was so thrown off by this question that I laughed. “Do some people not?” I asked. “No,” she said, deeply serious, “there are some mzungu who come to work at Bwera Hospital who do their work, read in their free time, and do not even look at us.” I suggested that perhaps it was a misunderstanding, but was struck by her desire for approval by the outside world. I’ve noticed this in conversations with others; they seem to be self-conscious about their “third world” label and consider themselves less advanced than others. But I’ll talk about that later.

Madame Pauline’s words sum up the difference between our lives: “Life here is hard.” She asked me if I ever digged. No, I guess I didn’t dig that much. She asked me why I stayed all the way in Kasese instead of there in Rwentutu. But before I could answer she said, “Ah I know. There’s no electricity here and it gets very dark at night.” She implied that we were too good for this simplicity, and guilt set in. The four of us consider the house in Kasese different from what we’re used to; we aren’t used to boiling water to drink it, being woken up by roosters, being subject to the internet or power going out at any time (now, I’m just grateful it isn’t the water), etc.  But we’re still very privileged. We have a sturdy house with a tiled roof (instead of tin, which is awfully loud when it rains), painted walls, electricity, refridgerators…  While we’ve seen a lot of towns and homes that defy the African stereotype, there are indeed people living in mud-and-stick huts (many of them have tin roofs). It was awful to realize that while I thought I was being open to stepping outside my comfort zone, I was still within a wider comfort zone. We’ve still limited our own experiences. If the program had us living “in the bush,” none of us probably would have signed up for it. It makes me think about how what you’re willing to try limits what you will consequently learn.

So how could I blame Pauline for her writing of “carnivores” as “canibals,” her lack of world geography knowledge, her misunderstanding of curriculum, and her simple instruction methods? How could she possibly know these things? Here was a woman who knew a lot more about Rwentutu than I did, and who had at least gotten a teaching job, where she did not have to dig. But she still made me realized how much I like being educated about things beyond the small sphere of where I live; I like knowing where Ghana, Madrid, and Antarctica are, what otters and icebergs are, and how to use cameras, band-aids, and contact lenses (I got dust in my eye once and cleaning my contact attracted a crowd of wide-eyed kids). As much as I have to criticize about American society and how distant we are from the natural world and a simple life, I have to wonder how much of that is necessary in order to have the knowledge I now treasure.

Pauline also reminded me that people here cannot help but staring at us. Staring like this doesn’t happen where I live, because Madison is very diverse. But here, I can understand how people would be curious about us, even if they’ve seen bazungu before. It’s just hard to be accepting of that all the time. I’m not always in the mood to smile at people when they blankly stare at me. I don’t always want to feel like I’m in a parade. We had a fun day planned for us yesterday (Friday), but it was partially ruined by this feeling. We drove through Bwera, a town bordering the Congo, went to government-run hospital there (the biggest in the area), Bwera Secondary School, a restaurant, the border with the Congo, and a market nearby, which were all valuable experiences, but I constantly felt paraded around. It was so uncomfortable that I didn’t take any pictures. I wanted desperately to be an unnoticed observer, without the pressure of representing how white people view Africans. This trip was also somewhat ruined for me by the surprises and lack of organization. We were told we would be in Bwera by 10:30. We didn’t even leave the school until 11, because the teachers wanted to show us how to use a planning book (which I could have figured out myself, but I guess the gesture was nice). We were told we were going to the market; we were not told about everything else. It was 1:00 when I finally told Enoch that I really had to eat because I only had a banana for breakfast at 5:30. It was 2:00 when we finally ate. We were told that things would be like this, and that flexibility is a must, and I’m trying really hard to be flexible. It just feels like we must be flexible for others, we are subject to others’ whims, but others aren’t always considering our perspectives or desires.

Here I’ll interject a huge ANYWAYS…. I chose P6 as my class! Before coming here, I was pretty set on that, but it was actually a pretty hard decision. The P5 class was smaller, had more kid-like energy, and were less intimidating. But the P6 students just seemed so much more mature and ready to handle deep topics (and humor). On Wednesday, their English teacher wasn’t in class, so I read Fantastic Mr. Fox to them for the whole period. I was stunned by their silent attention and I realized that stories would be fun with this group. Plus, one student, Deborah, stole my heart from day one; she approached the four of us and asked us about our lives & our time in Kasese, and then later bonded with me while talking about our families and what we want out of life. She’s incredibly mature and smart, and I hope to meet more students like her. Also, I was DELIGHTED to discover that we didn’t have to teach English and math- we could choose! Social studies is my jam, but the whole term will be spent talking about East Africa, which I found a little too intimidating. So I chose English and science! The first topic in science is animal classification, which I’m pumped about. English class is covering vocabulary related to traffic/road safety, which is weird, but I’ll give it my best. I’m still not really clear on when I’m expected to teach and what I’m supposed to plan, but I’m going to prepare as much as I can.

Off to plan some dope lessons! Thanks for reading!

P.S. Sorry there’s no pictures… I’ll try to do an all-picture post on Monday