Boys Conference

May 20, 2014

This last weekend four other volunteers and I helped to put on a boys conference for boys from our respective villages/schools. I brought some Form 1 boys who do well in school and participate actively. Others brought more Form 1 boys or boys from upper primary school.

We all got together at a venue outside of Mafinga on Friday mid morning and were there until late morning on Monday. The main purpose of this conference was to teach the boys about life skills and things that they do not otherwise learn in school. But the conference had other goals also. We all brought counterparts with us and they did most of the talking during sessions. This is partly because they can convey the messages in Swahili way more effectively than we (volunteers) can, but also because we want them to learn these topics and learn how to run a conference like this. As Peace Corps says, it's about building capacity.

During the conference we put on sessions about HIV, budgeting, studying science, gender roles, role models, puberty, goal setting, entrepreneurship, and other topics.

My counterpart and I helped mostly with the science, goal setting and HIV transmission sessions. The week before the conference we worked on what to teach during these lessons and we had some good information and activities to do with the students. So when we showed up we just had to make a few teaching aids and then got going.

Playing a math game with some students during the Shika na Mikono (hands-on science) session

Students with their straw tower for the physics part of the session

Teaching about gende roles. On the left: things that men do. On the right: things that women do. In the middle: things that both can do. Cooking, cleaning and raising children were all in the middle (wooooo!), but somehow pregnancy is only for men...

My counterpart teaching the session about making goals. When we talked about realistic goals we had to crush some dreams by telling them that they couldn't be president of the US because they weren't born there... Poor kids. But hopefully they have better ideas of what they want to do in life and how to achieve it now.

My counterpart helping to explain the goal setting activity.

The kids had a ball with the condom balloons during the HIV prevention talk.

Giving the students their certificates of completion for the conference!

Along with all of the learning we also had some good food...

...had a movie night (they loooooooove Cool Runnings!!)...

...and got some exercise while learning about health.

We also did some Insanity work outs with the kids one night and had a dance party with them after the graduation ceremony and some skits about what they learned. All the kids seemed to have a really good time and they kept asking if we could continue the conference all week. For some of them, this is the farthest they have ever travelled from their villages (~80 km), and the accommodations (hot running water, electricity, plenty of food and water...) are way more than they are used to. Even if they learned nothing from the sessions, just staying at a nice place like that might be motivation to work hard to have a better life.

The kids (and even the counterparts) made a handful of new friends from different areas in our region which was really great to see. In the beginning we had to force them to sit with each other, but by the end we had to work to get them back into their school groups for action planning.

The last session we had with them on Monday morning was Action Planning. This was a time for them to think about what and how they can share the information they got with their friends,the  school and their villages. What they learned is relevant to everyone at their schools and most people in their villages too. Unfortunately we could only bring a small number of them to the conference. So now they will plan and schedule a session to share what they learned.

This was a very cool project to be a part of. We got to share some vital information with these kids and it was easy to see how much they enjoyed it. It was a good break from the normal school environment that the kids are usually in. And it was awesome to see the counterparts taking on role model and leadership roles in the different sessions.

After the students and counterparts took off, the nuns who run the place told us that they make home made noodles, cheese and sausages there! So we checked it out and I got some cheese and noodles and will be eating mac and cheese all week!

Happy to find a new cheese supplier (it's not easy to find around here).

Welp. That was my weekend. Now one more week of teaching, a week of tests, and then it'll be June break! Half a school year down!

Soccer (Mpira wa miguu)

May 14, 2014

In an effort to integrate more into the community, I went to play soccer with some villagers at a field near my house yesterday. They play most days and sometimes have matches against other villages. I have heard them before and knew that they played but recently I've been getting invitations from various people in the village (the guy making a new door for my house, some older men who hang out in dark rooms and drink the local alcoholic bamboo drink, the guy I buy tomatoes from...), so I decided to check it out.

I showed up early (or they showed up late...I don't even remember which is which anymore) and only a few guys had showed up. We started to kick the ball around and play a little keep away. This went on as more people came. One of them was constantly blowing his whistle to tell everyone to come.

When more people showed up we stopped playing keep away and started getting organized for a scrimmage. They put me on the non-red team (I was wearing blue), and asked me where I liked to play. I said midfield. That was a mistake. I am in nooooo shape to be playing center mid like back in high school, so I slacked off a little and played more of a forward/midfield combo.

As we were playing, a bunch of villagers (all men) came to watch. Most of them know me or at least who I am and they would get excited when I did anything. It was cool to have a cheering section, but I also felt like I had to prove myself a little. I made a handful of rusty mistakes, but I made a few decent plays too and I even heard some on the sidelines telling them to pass to me more or to play more like the European guy (me, apparently).

The villagers aren't bad! I definitely got a good workout and have some competition. But they lack a lot of the more refined skills that I have learned from some great coaches over the years. Things like "you don't always have to go forward." Or "play the ball on the ground." Strategy is pretty non-existent here. So I hope to bring some of that to them once I earn my spot with the team. They could really benefit from some new drills, more movement off the ball, less kick-and-run, and a more in-shape midfielder.....

Other than the villagers who I just started playing with, I've also been recruited as a coach for the school team. With them, I have automatic superiority as a teacher. So whether they like it or not, they do what I tell them. They have similar problems to the village team - a general lack of strategy - so I have been running some drills with them to make them think differently about the game. Things to make them think more as a team when defending rather than as individuals. New ways to handle corners and free kicks in the offensive third. Drills where the "goal" is a number of passes rather than an actual goal. I think for most of them, the purpose of the drills is apparent and they enjoy the different style that it forces them to use. For others, they just think it's funny when I make the losing team do push ups.

I'm hoping to help organize a friendly between the village and school teams. I'm still at the beginning of my relationship with both of these teams so we will see where things go from here.

New Teachers

May 1, 2014

This past week, after our Easter/mid-term break, the teachers from  teacher training colleges got placed by the government at schools around the country. We had a meeting with the heads of departments to discuss this (I'm the physics head by default since I am the only physics teacher). We got 5 new teachers, which was nice, but 4 of them only teach arts subjects (history, geography, Swahili, civics...). Each of the arts subjects are covered already by at least 5 teachers that we already had, which I'm afraid will mean more bored teachers and not much relief for the busy science teachers. However, the fifth teacher we got is a math teacher! Which was exciting, but unfortunately this means that the Form II students which have gotten used to my teaching style and who I have built a good relationship with are now his students.

At first I thought of this as a bad thing. I like those students, I have become invested in their success, they are comfortable with me, and now they have been taken from me (or I from them) without any consultation, mid year, and they will need to adjust to a new teacher while preparing for their national exams in the fall (I'm going to stick to Northern hemisphere seasons). It's not fair to me or to the students.

But then I thought about it differently. After about a year and a half, I will be gone. Relying on outside assistance is not healthy for any country (see USA oil addiction), and although I can be an example of different teaching and classroom management methods, it is important to pass the torch, even if it is earlier than I had hoped.

With this new mindset, I have been looking at ways to be useful around the school with my new four-periods-per-week schedule (I will still be teaching Form IV physics). Work is popping up everywhere. My second master desperately needs help with Bio and Chem, the English teachers want me to help their students, and as a member of the Shika na Mikono committee I have been offering my help to any teacher interested in making science/math more interesting with hands-on tools.

Many of the volunteers in the older education class have told me that teaching is not the most important part of our job here. This has become increasingly clear to me. I have never been observed in the classroom by anyone since pre-service training in July. No teachers are learning anything from me while I am in the classroom. And while teaching seems to be my 'job' here, the title "education volunteer" does not necessarily mean "classroom teacher." If I can get teachers at my school to see the importance of teaching aids and hands-on learning, this behavior change would have a far greater impact on Tanzanian education over time than any teaching I could do in my short two years here.

In short, I'm trying to see this schedule change as a blessing in disguise. Less time with my students, but more time to make an impact in different areas. And who knows? Maybe I'll be recruited to teach even more periods now that I'm a free agent again.