Student and food and hosting..

October 27, 2014

This past week a couple of students who I've come to know pretty well asked if they could come visit me for lunch on Saturday. They said they missed home cooked food - I can relate - so I invited them to come over. I went to town Friday, got some veggies and other ingredients, got back Saturday and they came by.

The students were really helpful and cleaned up my courtyard and started my charcoal cooker. I made a peanut sauce dish for them that I make often and they enjoyed it. We watched the Bourne Identity together on my laptop and talked a bit. Then they took off for their other weekend activities.

As I'm writing this I'm realizing how boring this post probably will be... Maybe I haven't thought about it enough but for some reason this meal was the highlight of my weekend. Maybe because I have been so accustomed to being by myself at home when other volunteers aren't around that I forgot that there are people all around me. I can't afford to be feeding every student of course but it was good to invite those who are bold enough and comfortable enough with me to ask.

On Sunday a couple of Form I students came over. They know me from the boys conference we went to together back in May. They have been coming by the past few weeks to watch movies and play guitar. I've started thinking of it as a burden and that maybe they are just using me for my laptop (which I'm still sure they are...), but this time they played guitar for maybe half an hour and then told me they needed to clean my house a little. They started with the dishes, the drying rack, swept the floor, took out the trash, mopped the floor, tidied up the mass of junk I've acquired and even cleaned up my storage/guest room. They cleaned my entire house for about 2 hours completely voluntarily. I was impressed and extremely grateful. So I sent one of them with my bike and 200 Shillings to get some tomatoes in the village while I started up the charcoal and rice. Again, we ate together and watched Kill Bill Vol. 2 but this time they cut the movie short when they were done eating and finished up cleaning before going on.

I'm still processing all of this. I'm not sure why it's weird or why it's noteworthy, but it's something...

Science Teacher Training

October 18, 2014

A big part of Shika na Mikono is helping other volunteers to use simple and cheap teaching aids in the classroom, but when possible, we also try to reach out to the Tanzanian teacher community to help share our ideas with them and get them to think differently about science education. We were thrilled about a month ago when a teacher training college in Iringa town called Klerruu invited us to come and run a day-long training for the biology, physics, and chemistry teachers-to-be.

Four of the seven of us Shika members started planning for the event. We decided what activities to do, made a schedule for the day and got a materials list ready. We arrived the day before the training and went shopping, put together some teaching aids and finalized the schedule.

The next morning we showed up early and started getting set up. The school told us there would be approximately 100 students but there were closer to 160. We thought we would have a big hall to make an introduction and talk to everyone for a bit but there were only small class rooms and labs available in te morning. So we had to be flexible and work with the teachers to make everything work out.

We started off by introducing everyone to the Peace Corps, then to our roles here as education volunteers and then to Shika na Mikono. After a short introduction we broke them into subject groups and did an activity we call "Box of Fun." During this activity we gave the student teachers a box of various cheap items. Some were garbage like plastic bags and used plastic bottles. Some were just cheap supplies like rubber bands, Q-tips, toothpicks and clothes pins. Then we broke them into small groups and assigned them a topic from their subject's syllabus and told them to make a teaching aid that they can use to teach that topic.

Talking with one of the groups about their teaching aids for Newton's Laws

I was with the physics groups and had a great time checking out their teaching aids and helping them to think creatively (something that is not encouraged and often is actively discouraged here). At first their teaching aids were very simple and not always well thought through, so as I walked from group to group I challenged them to think about how they would use this tool to directly or metaphorically to teach their topic. Some teaching aids did not match well with the topic initially but after a few changes they could be used throughout a lesson to teach several points in the same topic.

After about half an hour of preparation the groups presented their teaching aids to the other physics groups. Many provided some theory first and then demonstrates how it worked in a practical sense with their teaching aid. It was really rewarding for me to see the teachers proving to themselves that readily available, cheap materials can be used to teach physics more effectively. Most teams did a really good job explaining their new apparatus and how it connects with the topic, but some had a little more trouble and I was more than happy to help them out when they struggled with some of the details.

One teacher showing off his group's teaching aid for the physics topic of pressure in fluids.

After showing their teaching aids to their respective groups of science teachers-to-be, one group from each subject was taken and showed their new teaching aid to the other subjects.

New physics teachers showing off their teaching aids to the whole group.

Graduation 2014

October 23, 2014

Here in Tanzania it is common to have graduation before the final exam for Form IV. The national exam does not start until November 3, but on October 9 we had graduation.

The concept is pretty much the same: a general celebration of the completion of secondary school, family and friends, a guest speaker, awards, leaving certificates... But there are a lot of differences too. The guest speaker is expected to make some donation or give a gift to the school. At this year's graduation even the parents were solicited for money. There is loud music whenever possible. There a lots of skits and performances by all of the classes throughout the ceremony. And there is a ton of food afterwards.

The guest speaker (a professor at a university in Iringa) was late this year so we had to cut out some things from the ceremony including a speech I had written. So much for being prepared this year... But the guest speaker did talk about some of the points I wanted to make. The main idea was to tell the parent how important their role in their children's education is. Maybe I can give the speech another time.

Last year the food was a big issue. The budget set aside for graduation was not big enough and a lot of people left hungry. This year we compensated. We killed a cow (which was stored in big pots in the room adjacent to the toilets...), we bought tons of rice and beans and veggies and there was plenty of food for all.

After the ceremony we ate and I was recruited by a bunch of my students to pose for pictures. After a couple hours, the music started in our main hall and the students had a dance for a few hours. I joined in with a couple other teachers. It's really easy to dance like an idiot when there are four tipsy Tanzanian friends looking like idiots with you. When the students saw I was dancing some of them came over to teach me some of their moves. It was tons of fun but my legs tired quickly.

Last year graduation was the first big school event I attended when I got here and that made me think that this will almost certainly be my last graduation. Sometime between mid-August and mid-October I will be heading back to the states. Everything annual thing I am doing from here on out is likely the last one I will do here. It's a weird feeling... More on that in the 18 month Update in January.

After the dance all of us teachers had a big dinner in the staff room and said a few words about how everything went. Then I headed home and slept hard.