Starry Nights and Griping

Another Starry Night

Outside of my back door is the Milky Way, along with the rest of the Universe, spread, scattered, placed, what-have-you, in all its glory. Every night it’s there. Some nights I step outside and stare. Tonight was one of those nights. And is often the case in these situations, my lack of thoughts, and feelings of the sublime, inverted to thoughts of the sublime and lack of feelings. Luckily for me the former lasted much longer than the latter and even luckier for you, I don’t recall the latter.

But after that short jaunt into freshman year English had finished, I had some other thoughts. I thought about how difficult it is to learn a new profession. I thought about relationships and how fortunate I’ve been to have encountered people in my life who are willing to maintain them intercontinentally (it is nice to use that word and not have ‘ballistic missile’ following it). I thought about the conversations we have here, on huge topics, like developing a nation, and how remote those discussions are from my day to day in the classroom. I thought about how frustrated I get with students when they are unable to make even the smallest step in logic. I thought about how somewhere between a quarter and half of the students are orphans with a total lack of intellectual stimulation. And I thought about what a great adventure this is.

It’s nice to have these thoughts. Despite the early feelings of slowness and lack of anxiety, my personality has taken over and the year and a half I have left here already seems too short. There are days that I frantically try to figure out how to teach without x, y and z … and alpha, beta and gamma, and other days that I feel setup for failure by the students’ primary education, or HIV/AIDs, or the communication barrier, or other teachers or any number of huge obstacles. And so it is those nights, that I decide to step outside to look up at the stars, that are most useful. They help me to forget about the lack of materials and resources, and help me to remember that I am here to teach. I am here to inspire curiosity and questions. I’ll let you know when a student comes with that first big question.

Another Bleak Thursday

There is something about Thursdays that is really difficult. The recuperation that happened over the weekend has been depleted with four days of blank stares and near total lack of comprehension.

I’m going to try to get some long distance pity-love by giving you a little background to this melodrama. Last week I discovered some science kits that I had hitherto not known of. I spent the weekend getting them in order and taking stock of what was missing. There are probably 6 nearly complete kits that are very well thought and very cool. So, after last Friday’s lecture on electrical cells and discovering that students had absolutely no background in atomic theory (e.g. electrons, protons, neutrons) I decided I should get back to some basics. Due to my discovery of the science kits I decided to use the science lab for the first time this year (by any teacher).

I put together a quick measurement lab with 8 stations. They would measure temperature of water in a beaker as the water was heated by a candle, measure the sides of the building with a measuring tape, measure volume using a graduated cylinder, etc. All of the measurements were very simple and there was nothing more complicated than multiplication. Again, I overestimated the students’ background by assuming they had ever measured anything. A lab that was supposed to take up the double period on Tuesday and maybe run halfway into Wed. took up all of Thursday also. The students had never used any piece of the equipment before.

I had planned on focusing more on calculating volume from measurements of a box than on teaching students how to read a thermometer, which it seemed that none of them had ever actually seen before. Teaching 18 year old kids, who are in the 8th grade, to read thermometers was not in the agenda. In retrospect I feel pity for these kids. I wish it were empathy, but they don’t realize how far behind they are. I’m ashamed to say that at the time though, I felt bitterness towards them. Bitter that they didn’t know how to measure length using a ruler. Bitter that the concept of volume is totally lost. And mostly bitter that they don’t give a shit.

But I took a walk. And I reflected. I realized that my expectations of having a group of students who are eager to learn, to better themselves and who were curious needs to be thrown out. I am working with kids who have grown up in a culture that only newly is going through the Western style educational system, in a country without the wide and varied industries available in the US. The only money-making jobs that most of these students are aware of are teacher, pilot, policeman, taxi-driver, shop owner, nurse, doctor, thief or marijuana grower/smuggler. You can probably choose the three professions that are available to a kid here whose English is at a 3rd grade level. HIV/AIDs and death are oppressive and there is simply very little motivating these kids in a positive way. “The Rod” is the go to form of motivation, and is not particularly self-perpetuating.

So, I’m in a much different position than I expected. And it’s going to take a little while for me to take on the role of trying to put students in situations to discover measurement, the different between mass and weight and why -100 is less than -50. It was a long time ago that I discovered them for myself. This teaching thing is so hard, and dynamic, frustrating and exhilarating. But here it goes. Friday will surely be better.

Back from Vacation

Hey all,

More training came and went. Then vacation in Durban has come and gone and tonight I have to get back on the taxi for 2.5 hours then mark (grade) 120 exams for tomorrow. But, let’s not talk about that. Let’s talk about draught beer on the beach, red curry on the deck and a tuna rainbow roll on the upstairs veranda.

Durban was wonderful. Our backpackers was amazing, with a giant shower with hot water that I didn’t have to boil, tap water without e-coli (Maseru had an outbreak), TV, a light switch that worked, and it was actually very beautiful, clean and quaint all for 10 USD a night. In fact, Durban was very inexpensive all around. A big Italian dinner with bountiful wine was $12. An ice cream cone was 60 cents. A pint on the beach was $1.30. So, we ate. A lot.

We also spent a lot of time walking around because we don’t speak Zulu, we’re too cheap for a private taxi, and Durban is too big for all the taxi drivers to know where everything is. Unfortunately downtown Durban is not particularly beautiful. There is a hodgepodge of 60s and 70s derelict architecture mixed with New Orleansesque building fronts. And it is fairly dirty.

Also, we went to the mall. It was great, except they don’t buy jeans in all sizes. Instead they buy jeans in lengths from 32” to 40” and expect us short people to just have them hemmed. It was frustrating. But the chocolate cake I got was delicious and the process the guy went through was akin to the Mr. Bean scene in Love Actually. There were 2-3 utensils to cut and plate the cake. Then came some sort of special cherry, which was placed with utmost care on top of the cake. Cocoa powder was delicately sprinkled on top. Then fudge sauce was drizzled artistically across the cake. He shut the lid of the container, but then he remembered he wanted to make sure I approved of the cake before handing it to me. He opened the lid, and his artistry had become a Rorschach test on the lid of the container. I looked at the cake, then up at the artisan, and I nodded my solemn approval. Then I ate it. The giant piece of cake cost me $2.30. It was delicious.

So, all in all, vacation was great. I’ll have to post pictures next time as I am running out of time now. It will be another week and a half or so before I’m back at the internet, but in the mean time, feel free to leave posts. They make me happy. Oh, and if somebody could explain to mean how to set up an “RSS Feed”, that would be great.

Other than that, I have been helping to work on a grant to get power for my school. It’s due at the end of the month and people from NGC (especially Tad) has been incredibly helpful. So, thank you. I’m also going to start to help organize our school library and maybe work with the African Library Project to get more books. If you’re interested in helping with that in the future, please take a look at their website. It’s a really great organization.

If there is anything people would like to know about my time here, or the people, or teaching or whatever, feel free to leave a post here, message me on Facebook or email me.

Cheers, and until next time, sala hantle (remain well).