happy 4th

Happy 4^th of July!!!!!

 Today was the international teachers conference in Gulu, and the first day that I got seriously frustrated. Discussing teaching strategies with some of the male teachers here makes me want to bang my head against a wall. I know that I’m not here to change the educational system, but I don’t understand how 5 questions at the end of a 90-minute lesson is an accurate assessment of a students performance. What happens if every student gets those questions wrong, or even one student? Then you just have to wait until the next day to try and reinforce that skill, review that skill, when you’re just starting at the beginning anyway. Teachers here don’t usually stay in the room when the students are answering those questions.  One teacher at ST. Mary’s, William, is so stuck in a rut that I don’t know how his students retain anything. He actually said today that the best way for the students to learn is to sit and take notes. They even have a phrase for it, “talk and chalk”. I guess I should have been prepared for this as soon as I saw the textbook, When there are sentences that discuss a good wife being someone who cooks a better meal for her husband than a sister wife in the English text, something is a little off. I guess the more time I spend here, the harder it is for me to grasp the cultural differences that hinder a classroom. I suppose it should be getting easier, but the more time I spend in the classroom the more good I want to do, but I feel like I’m being restricted by something larger than me, or my students, it’s culture.

During the conference we heard a lecture from an educator from Kampala, and Iit seemed as if the Northern Ugandan teachers too the opportunity to vent their frustration with the government’s educational policies. I felt bad for the speaker, because he didn’t represent the government at all, they were actually invited and did not come, but the N.U. teachers went nuts. They complained that they are underpaid, and have no say in the educational policy that the ministry administers, and I could really relate to that. It was good for me to hear them complain too, because up until that point in the conference, I was getting so frustrated with the male teachers that I shut down. I just stopped suggesting anything because I’m at a huge disadvantage. I look at everything from a special ed perspective, and I’m part of the new generation of teachers in New jersey that have been lucky enough to have modern, up to date courses on the teaching methods that have been proven by research to be the most effective. Listening to the teachers discuss their problems here, however, allowed me to jump off of my high horse for a second and see where they were coming from. In Uganda, when you take your high school exit exams, they literally give you a choice of occupations that you can choose form based on your scores. Some of these teachers didn’t even want to be educators, but going to school to be a doctor a lawyer is very expensive, and maybe their scores didn’t qualify them to be a doctor or a lawyer. It really did a lot for me in understanding why I see the apathetic attitudes of some of these teachers. It reminded me of one of my favorite novels, Anthem by Ayn Rand.  Teachers here are stretched very thin and paid very little with no health insurance, which didn’t justify, but gave me more insight into why I am seeing some of the frustrating practices that I am seeing. The other day at St. Mary’s, I saw a student walk up to a teacher for help, and they said, “I’m reading the paper now, come to me later.” I almost fell out of my chair. In the states, a teacher becomes a teacher because they are passionate about their career, because they want to help students. It took me almost all day today (of being totally pissed), to realize that there are good teachers and bad teachers everywhere… I’m starting to feel like the honeymoon stage is over for me, even if I still love this place more than any other place I have ever visited. The gratitude that I feel here is touching. When I took a boda home tonight, the driver asked me where I lived, and when I told him I was a teacher staying at Lacor he thanked me for coming to Uganda, a man that I had never seen before. He was sincerely thankful that I made the trip. He said, “thank you for coming here to help.” You wont hear that from a taxi driver in NYC.

 Here, the teachers feel like the government has too much say in curriculum without considering the teachers who are implementing that policy. I think an exact quote was, “policy makers don’t consider policy implementers on the ground.” I respect that because it happens at home too. AT the Craig School I would get frustrated sometimes because I feel as if we were asked a lot from a director that had been out of the classroom for so long, she wasn’t connected with classroom policy and practice. She was a genius when it came to diagnosing and treating learning disabilities, but when it came to everyday classroom practice she was very disconnected, which made my job difficult. (although now I have a totally new definition of the word “difficult”)

 I consider myself so lucky to be paired with Alice. She is so open and so willing to let me experiment with the kids and get them out of their seats. She sits and laughs when I dance around the room and get silly with the kids, and I honestly feel like we are learning from each other. She has spunk, and I see a lot of myself in her. For example, she left her husband three weeks ago because he drank and abused her, and today she was wearing a teeshirt that said, “Be a Man, Caring, Faithful, Non-Violent, Respectful.” She made her way through teachers college with three babies, and speaks the best English that I have heard here from an Acholi person.

 I was exhausted after the conference, but Jo, Casey and I managed to walk to town before heading home to get some essentials. I found a store that has sliced bread, Nutella and peanut butter, so I picked some up to have when I didn’t feel like eating dirt rice, something I’ve grown very accustomed to. Every bite of rice I take has bits of dirt in it so I don’t think I’ll ever eat rice the same way again. Now I just wolf it down as quick as possible, trying not to bite down.

 I had a soldier run after me with a rifle today in the market, which was pretty scary. I was walking in to grab mini bananas for my nutella and peanuter sandwhich idea when I heard “muzungu, muzungu!”, I just thought it was another person screaming at me because I’m white, something that I’ve gotten very used to, but apparently it was a soldier screaming at me to leave the market because it was closed. Yeah, they run after you with a rifle if you’re in the market after it closes. I don’t think I’ll forget that rule now.

 Back at the compound was very fun tonight, I think much needed after a frustrating, stressful, and exhilarating day. I learned how to play Kipps, and Jo was the best partner ever. I can’t wait to visit her in San Diego and get some legit burritos. From what the Cali kids have been telling me I have been missing out on some serious Mexican food.

 Tomorrow is day 2 of the conference, and hopefully it will be a little more encouraging than it was today.