My 600 New Friends - Ann

I got called a workaholic a couple weeks ago by members of my department when I told them I wasn’t happy teaching only 7 hours of class a week.  I came here to teach and share whatever expertise I can, but they don’t seem to understand that.  In fact, the job I thought I came here to do, 20 hours a week in training teachers in literacy skills and student centered teaching approaches, never materialized, and unlike some Sierra Leoneans, I can’t sit for hours at a time under a palm tree day after day after day doing nothing.

So I took matters into my own hands and became a workaholic by adding four hours of teaching at the next door primary school.  It is the best thing I’ve done since I came here.

Elementary classrooms in Sierra Leone are horribly overcrowded and under resourced.  The government declared all primary and secondary education was free and open to every child, but the supply of classrooms and teachers can’t keep up with the numbers of children. On average, classrooms meant for 30 students hold 60-100 crammed together on a mishmash of benches and long narrow desks.  There is only a very bad blackboard and chalk with which to teach them.

I hoped to volunteer at Eastern Polytechnic Teaching School next to my campus by working with a few children who are struggling readers.  The principal of the school was delighted with my offer and decided I could help out by teaching reading comprehension to “small” groups (~35 students at a time) of 5^th and 6^th graders.

The first time I went to the school to meet with the principal, I walked across the playground (the dirt and rock area in front of the school buildings) when the students were out for recess.  They stopped and stared at the “Poumoy” (white person) coming to their school. If a glitter unicorn flew out of the sky and alit on a playground at an elementary school in the U.S. it might receive the level of awe my presence created that day. The next morning, I was at the school before 8 to be formally introduced to them during the morning assembly.  The 5^th and 6^th graders lined up at the base of the stairs going into their building.  They pointed at me and whispered to each other.  When I was introduced, they said in unison (at the prompting of the principal) “Welcome Miss Anna.” That day when I left the school a few students were brave enough to say good-bye to me and a couple even wanted to shake my hand.  The next day on my walk across the playground I was absolutely mobbed by students running up to me. The brave ones shook my hand or gave me a high five, the more cautious snuck up behind  to touch me and then quickly run away. Many others kept their distance and shouted "Poumoy". This time I answered back, "No, I'm  Miss Anna."

I was there to observe a couple classes so I could get a sense of the students.  The level 6 class had 72 students crammed into the desks and benches that were arranged in three rows perpendicular to the board. The teacher began by writing the lesson on the board and the students got out their copy books and began to copy down what she had written.

Here’s what the teacher wrote:

                Language Arts 2    Writing Letters

                The Salutation (Greeting)

                The Body (Message)

                The Conclusion (Closing)

Then came the teaching part. 

                Teacher:  “Today students we are going to do writing letters. What are we going to do?”

                Students in unison and loudly: “Writing Letters.”

                Teacher: "Let’s read the parts of the letter.”

                Students in unison:  “The Salutation in brackets greeting.  The body in brackets message.  

                                                      The conclusion in brackets closing.”

Repetition is the main tool of learning.  I scanned the group. The class was very well behaved and almost everyone was shouting out, but it is pretty easy to shout, “The body in brackets message.” and not understand a thing you are saying. But they did get to practice writing a letter to their uncle asking for money to help pay their school fees (a common theme in letter writing around here).  They were given the model sentences:

                “How is life with you?  I hope you are well.

                  I am writing to ask you for your help with my school fees. 

                  I have been driven from the school because I  can’t pay my fees.

                  This is the end of my letter, may God bless you.”

The next day my playground approach consisted of about a hundred handshakes or high fives and one little peanut who ran up to me and hugged me around my legs. Isn’t it nice to be appreciated!

I began working with my small groups.  Since there are only four classrooms in the level 5/6 building (with a total of about 350 students) giving me a “small” group required some major maneuvering on the part of the teachers.  I got 34 students, each able to share a small reading book, and the remaining 50-75 students were shuffled into the classroom of the other section that already contained 70-100 students. How the other room physically held that many students I don’t know, but they have made it work, bless them.

Their reading practice up to this time has mostly been copying a text off the board and then repeating and repeating it until the teacher thinks it has sunk in.  They are good at finding the place in the text where the answer is and repeating it, but they don’t always seem to understand what it means. And in a class of 100 many of them have managed never to learn how to read. It's easy to get lost in that many students.

 I’m having a good time trying to make their brains work a little as critical thinking is almost nonexistent here.

In the story the level 5 students are working with, a boy can’t push an omolanke (kind of like a big dolly or hand cart) because it’s too heavy.  I asked them to give me some other examples of heavy things.

“An omolanke.”

“Yes, but tell me something else that might be heavy. Look at the picture.  What is on the omolanke?”

“Bananas.”

“Yes, but are bananas heavy?” 

“A bag of bananas.”

“Yes, a bag of bananas is heavy.  What else is heavy?”
“A bag of rice.”…”A bag of cassava.”….”A bag of cement.”

“Good answers. But can we think of something else that is heavy that isn’t in a bag?”

Silence.

So I greet my journey to the primary school each day with joy because the students are joyful and appreciative and so in need of any kind of learning.  I don’t know if I can do much to turn them into critical readers, but at least they now need not fear a white person in their midst, and now when I walk from my house to shop or go to the Peace Corps office, I have an endless number of new school friends who live along the way shouting, "Hello, Miss Anna!"

I will end with apologies to one young man on the left in the picture at right.  I wanted to get some photos of the school and students, but the second I walked into the classroom to take a picture, everyone jumped up and began mugging for the camera.  I told the teacher present that I wanted a picture of them at their desks so he ordered them to sit down, take out a book or some work and look busy so that anyone seeing the photo would see Sierra Leone students are serious.  This one boy wasn’t quite fast enough for the teacher so he got smacked hard on the head by the ever present bamboo cane that all teachers have.  Whack. Ow! The little boy put his hands on his head, clearly the whack hurt.  Whack again. “I said get your book out.  Do it faster.”  Sorry buddy.  This photo comes with a price.