An interesting school experience

(Editor's note: This post was created March 11, 2009)

So yesterday we visited a middle school near our host homes. My group went to a middle school that served grades 7-9.
It was an interesting experience, to say the least. In some aspects, it reminds me very much of standard public school education in Texas (Thanks, Bush!) But, in other ways, it’s way worse than Texas public school. Unbelievable, but true.
The teachers don’t have desks. There are no neatly typed and printed handouts for each student nor are there any room decorations. There are barely enough desk space and chairs for the students in the room and a box serves as the trash can. Some classrooms don’t even have teachers; which means that students either use that time to do their homework, or as an extra break. Sometimes a teacher will peek his/her head in to make sure they aren’t killing each other.
Some of the kids are still pretty smart. They are learning English and have a pretty good grasp of the language just after a few years of being taught. In the education system, the students aren’t taught to think critically about problems, but to memorize facts and solutions to problems. I sat in on a math class and they were talking about triangles. I could tell they’d gone over the material before, and they had memorized the types of triangles and the difference between the lengths of each side for each side. The teacher then goes through a different, new, subtopic: quadrilaterals. The teacher goes through each type of quadrilateral and demonstrates by using the door as an example:
Teacher: Our door is an example of a type of quadrilateral. It has 4 sides. (She points to each side) This is side one, this is side two, this is side three, and this is side four. (She moves over to the chalk board) This chalkboard is an example of a quadrilateral. It has four sides. (She points to each side.) This is side one, this is side two, this is side three, this is side four. (Then she picks up a book.) This book is an example of a quadrilateral. It has 4 sides. (She points to one of the sides.) This is…
Students: side one. This is side two. This is side three. This is side four.
This goes on for several more things. The students repeat more and more each time and soon the class is in perfect unison. The class repeats the different types of quadrilaterals several times and then they take a break copy down the homework into their notebooks (again, no paper handouts).
I learned from education PCVs that this is a pretty standard way of “teaching.” I call it the “repeat after me” way of learning. I understand how it works, but in a language that isn’t a student’s mother tongue, I wonder if they’re really learning or just memorizing the words the teacher wants to hear to be correct. Like a person learning the words to a song in a language they don’t know.
This theory was tested in the Life Orientation class. The class was talking about environmental pollutants. One potential pollutant named was buildings because buildings may have snakes and broken bottles. Hmm…..ok. The way the children responded and the teacher reacted to each of the student’s answers, you can tell they had gone through it before and were merely repeating an answer they’d already learned and not thinking critically of the problem.
The teacher also asked what the problem with living in a landfill area was. Obviously, most of these children had never experienced this problem because in the village trash is burned by each family and most kids have only lived in this village. Landfills are only found in more urban areas. Anyway, the “correct” answer was that landfills make your eyes burn and there are flies near landfills. Ok, so this is true, possibly, but the bigger problems or risks were never accessed or even proposed.
So school day was definitely eye opening. To say the least.
The one thing that I have been incredibly amazed at each time we visit schools is the amazing ability these kids have to sing. There is a morning assembly and the kids usually sing a couple of songs together and it always, undoubtedly, sounds amazing. Truly, if Oprah were keen to it, surely she would have done an episode about it a time or two.
Hmm, I wonder if the kids in her “special school” in Joburg sing as well. Maybe it’s too Americanized for that. I would hope they do.
Anyway, after we left the middle school, we got lunch and then I came into my room to take a nap. I had the weirdest dream about going to a job interview with my underwear outside my pants. To make matters worse, a girl that I was with (in the dream) saw and tried to help by suggesting I take off my underwear diaper style (which is the only way I can describe it) and put them on under my pants, like they’re supposed to be. I couldn’t figure it out so I just went ahead with the interview as is. Scary. What’s that all about? The dreams are getting weirder and weirder as I spend time in this country. I know that Malaria treatment is supposed to make your dreams crazy, but I’ve been off that stuff for almost a month and a half now. I just don’t get it.Anyway, one more day till site announcements. Woo (or boo), depending on how you see it. I just want to get it over with. I’m done with the anticipation. Let’s get the show on the road!