The school year has come to an end. Exams ended last week, and I have finished
grading nearly 200 tests and marking and equal number of report cards. Now we have a holiday until January.
We arrived at our school in the middle of last school
year, so this is the first time I have spent a full year with my students. It's fun to see how they have grown in that
time. Some of the boys have shot up
noticeably. I was taller than most of my
students in January, and now perhaps a third of the boys tower over me. Some of them never will, however, the result
of early childhood malnutrition and disease.
I always swore I would never teach high school, yet here
I am, and I love my students. They are
cheerful and curious (about me, if not about their studies). They don't sass, as it's unthinkable in this
culture to talk back to an authority figure, but they do tune out when they are
bored or overwhelmed.
It being the end of the term and a time of assessment, I
have been wondering how much of a difference we have made here. We have completed a rainwater harvesting
project at the school, but the rains have not started in earnest yet, so we
have not been able to judge its benefits.
As for our teaching--who knows?
The bright kids could learn from any teacher, and I don't feel I have
been able to reach the slowest ones.
(Me, two weeks ago: "What is
9 plus 7?" Student: "3.") We do provide them with teachers, though, and
without us the school would have to scramble to cover the classes. Mark and I form one-half of the math
department for our school of 800 students, and there are very few Tanzanian
math teachers available.
In addition, we are the first Americans most of our
students have ever meet. Unlike tourists
who can be only glimpsed riding in Land Cruisers on their way to the wildlife
parks, the students, teachers, and townspeople can see us shopping for produce
in their markets, riding daladalas, and washing our laundry on our
doorstep. They can talk to us casually,
ask questions, and get to know us. (I
had a wide-ranging conversation with two teachers last week which started when
I told them about Thanksgiving. The
subjects touched on were religion in America, the separation of church and
state, volunteerism, the status of blacks in America, and what Mark and I will
do when we return to the States, among others.)
The Peace Corps believes, and I hope it is true, that this person-to-person
communication is as powerful a mission as our primary job of teaching
math. It's what keeps me going on those
frustrating days when students are unresponsive, the electricity is out, and
there is not even a trickle of water coming from the tap.
