Start of school

The school term has officially been open now for 2 weeks.  Which is not to say that we have been teaching all that time.  Not many students showed up for the first day of school, and those that did were set to work cleaning the school.  There is no regular maintenance staff for cleaning (although there are a couple of repairmen), and it is the responsibility of students to clean classrooms and school grounds.  This is typical among African public schools. 

One other reason students start the school term late (besides missing out on major cleaning duties) is that they have to pay school fees, even at the public schools.  Government funding is not enough to run the schools without "contributions" from students.  Even though the word sounds like it would be a voluntary payment, the students are not allowed in the classroom until fees are paid.  The school fee amounts to about $13 USD per term.  That may sound trivial, but most families have very small incomes.  Public school teachers, for example, earn about $200 per month.  I shudder to think what farmers, cattle herders, and market venders earn.    

Anyway, by the second week things were up and running with regular classes and almost full classrooms.  I am teaching first year math at our secondary school.  This school is unusual in that the first year students are divided into classes of 40 to 45 students, so as not to "discourage" them (our headmistress' word).  It is more typical that classes have 70 or 80 students, and some of the upper level classes here do, too.

My students have varying abilities in math and in comprehension of English.  In Tanzania, primary school is taught in Swahili, but secondary school is taught in English.  They take English in primary school, but it is only one of their subjects, and hearing the entire curriculum in the language comes as something of a shock.  My students aren't totally clueless by now, though, as the school year started in January, and this is just the start of the fall term.

One thing students especially lack is school books.  Schools do not provide textbooks like they do in the States.  If students want one, their parents have to buy them in a book store.  In each of my classes, perhaps 4 or 5 students have a math book.  Most of them are not the newest text, but rather 2 or 3 editions old.  Fortunately, math doesn't change much.  However, the situation means that it is impossible to assign reading or exercises from the textbook--there isn't one to which the students have access.  So, everything--definitions, examples, problems, and so on--must be written on the chalkboard.  The students have to copy it all in their notebooks, which become their own, home-made texts.   They do the best they can.  I am giving a test next week, so then I will see how well they study from their notes.