Sunday, September 28, 2003

09/08/2003

Yesterday started and ended very well. In the morning was a meeting with all of the HIV/AIDS organizations in town and there were about 7 people representing 4 organizations. This may seem like a lot for an African town, but there are actually about 25 organizations we didn't have there. The next meeting is scheduled to be in two weeks, and there's a ton of enthusiasm about getting a bunch of other organizations on board. Since it's only been one meeting, it doesn't actually mean anything, but there are too many people too involved in this to give up. It's exciting!

After the meeting, I went to Chris' school where it was a holiday - just for the school - and they were having a beauty pageant and HUGE party afterwards. Jake, Chris and I helped judge the pageant which was quite the spectacle. 8th to 10th grade girls (ages 15-20), came out in various outfits, from African traditional wear to swimsuits. It is all very well choreographed and even the losers seem to have a blast just because they're there. And I think we've dropped our American instincts of being automatically wary of being completely superficial watching our own students in various states of undress. Plus, there were some great (and horrible) dance and theater routines in between rounds of the competition. It lasted about 5 hours, which is actually not that long.

Afterwards, just about every turma at Chris' school pitched in to cook and get a DJ, so they could have a private party. They only allowed members of their own turma, but as there are three floors and about 6 classrooms on each floor of his school, there were plenty of people wandering about looking for an open door. It felt just like a state university packed into a Mozambican high school. Except, being Americans, Chris and I got into every party we wanted to. We got fed very well - and because it was put in front of me, I ended up eating two breasts of chicken, but had to pass on the beef. Really, quite a fun party all told. We didn't even have the energy to go to the discoteca afterwards.

This morning I went to the hotel at his site and asked to make a reservation for when my mother visits me. Turns out they only make reservations a week ahead of time, but I helped the guy at the front desk with his Biology studying, one of the waiters with his English, and practiced my Changana with another waiter. I think it's very easy to reinvent yourself speaking another language, much easier than just changing where you live, basic philosophies, etc.

In any case, I got some good analytical thinking in on education here. Taking a step back, I've noticed that it's nearly impossible for me to use metaphors when teaching. I asked myself why this is, and it's clearly that they memorize the metaphor. But the next step in the logical progression is the endpoint - that they copy everything the teacher does. I've been trying to look past this and figure out WHY they copy, but now I know that's unimportant. All that really matters is that they are taught from a VERY early age to copy their teacher and so everything else follows. They copy each other not because they don't have confidence in their own answer (they don't) or because they didn't study (again, they don't), but because the answer of the student sitting next to them is just as good as what could come out of their mouth. Since all that's being asked is to repeat information, there's only one correct answer and it's a copy of what the teacher gave. The teacher is asking the student to copy what they say - so what's the difference if they decide to copy what another student says is a copy of what the teacher said? Cheating is shunned so intensely in the States because understanding is so highly valued and copying means you don't understand. So what initially seems like two major problems, learning styles and cheating, are really one gigantic problem for American teachers here. Not that I have any good answers for it yet.

This is going to be a short, but busy week. Things with Diamentino should be sorted out, the latest activities with my activists should come to a head, English classes will go full steam ahead, my help with the PC training program will be handed over, and a bunch of house projects are on the docket for this weekend.

Here we go!

Peace

John

09/06/2003

I think I'm getting used to Africa time. We were supposed to meet at 7 AM, instead ending up leaving at 9:30 to play handball an hour away. When we got there, it was raining, so I and one of my students caught a ride to the beach about 30 minutes away. It was his first time to the beach, and so he collected some sand in a Ziploc I brought with me. We devoured the two sandwiches I'd made, got back, played the game, then got some fresh cashews before leaving.

The game was fairly uneventful. I played decently well after getting my bearings but was infinitely frustrated with our defence. It was simply lazy, which I think happens becuase sports here are more for show, than for results. I got laughed at plenty for trying hard and screwing up whereas the players who weren't trying all that hard but making risky and nice-looking passes caught the oohs and aahs. As must as this bugs me because I'm used to being judged on effort and not aesthetics, it's a welcome relief from the win-oriented American style. Though I get the feeling a Mozambican would be similarly relieved in an American system. Certainly, there's some middle ground?

That aside, it was a nice day to walk around and really appreciate the country. I saw small things, like gardens and private houses that I've passed by many times but never really seen before.

Walking near the beach, we saw this one house built on a hill. Typical Colonial Portuguese architecture with a twist. The master bedroom was built on a second level, giving it a fantastic view of the lagoon. Outside, a beautifully manicured garden, fenced in and guarded, made me lose my bearings. Where was I, really? Could this, in fact, be Mozambique? How confusing is the face of poverty? It occurred to me how easy the lives of these people must be, but they still buy the same rice, the same flour.

Walking around my own town (in fact, a city), I came to realize how willfully I've been dispensing amenities. Nimi and I ate a chocolate bar together while he bought restaurant-style hot sauce and we watched newer cars goes by. Granted, the cars were stolen, the hot sauce was ridiculously expensive, and the chocolate was pretty standard - but that same store even had cheese. Refrigerated. It's a good thing I can't afford it.

Diamentino essentially admitted that he stole the money. We just have to get it back now.

An open call for HIV/AIDS workers in C--- to come and get to know other workers happens tomorrow morning. I hope it's a success.

Pretty soon, it will be one year since I left Cleveland. They say missing home gets easier, but that's only because you get closer every day to returning to it.

I watched "Traffic" and "Air Rage" tonight at the Macias'. I forgot how true "Traffic"'s message of changing the social structure of modern families to combat drugs really is. I also forgot how bad movies can be, something "Air Rage" reminded me of. But Dinho enjoyed it, even though I had to explain the plot (the subtitles go too fast for most people here to read). Goofy violence seems to be pretty popular.

Peace

John

09/05/2003

At 11:30 today, I went to the HIV testing center, meeting 7 of my activists there. We watched a video about a woman who is living with AIDS and the social issues she deals with every day. It was pretty sad, but to cheer us up, was followed closely by a video about a couple who were debating going to the testing center. It was a good mix of typical Mozambican discussions, humor, and facts regarding the testing center. It was believably acted and didn't use elevated language.

My students enjoyed the videos, then we all piled into the counseling room to go over what a typical session is like, and what the students can tell other students about the testing center. It was a great experience - 3 of the students had done the test the day before and 3 more did it that day. They're pretty excited about going to the hospital for AIDS patients next Friday. All told, it seems like they are becoming more confident in their abilities to help others and not just simply memorizing information. They get frustrated from time to time that things seem to go slowly, but I tell them that they need to show up on time!

It's thundering outside. We're in the middle of a good-sized storm, but hopefully that doesn't mean the house will get flooded. It leaks like a sieve.

Reminds me of going through the car wash in my father's old Studebaker for the first (and last) time. Due to an unfortunate combination of old weather-stripping and general lack of foresight as to the existence of jet-powered car washes in 1962, we inside the car were cleaned just as well. We had a box of Kleenex, but we might as well have been trying to stop a dam.

Now, in this house, water comes in a broken window (broken by wind, nonetheless), through the ceiling, and through the gaps in the doors. There's really no stopping it, only hoping it doesn't break something.

Good, busy week.

Peace

John

09/04/2003

It's insatiable, this need to write. I think of or see something interesting and the journal is the first place I turn. I'm a junkie, and my addiction is quite healthy.

Diamentino robbed us yesterday of about $20 (big deal here). I dropped a note off in his house but have been unable to find him. Shit will hit the fan tomorrow. What this means for projects we were working on, I don't know, but Blake and I are tired of his crap.

Speaking of crap, my students certainly give me plenty of it. You have to have fun though - so I use Changana and English, random extra materials, pick on students who talk during class, make jokes straight-faced (which are now received fairly well), break cultural norms blatantly and knowingly, etc. But if 30 minutes of conducting the symphony of information known as a lesson leads to one concept being understood by 50% of the students, I'm ecstatic.

I get disheartened when I hear other teachers teach to memorize, because I know that that just reinforces the idea that intelligence = facts. But Alfred watched my teach today and commented on the interactive style, even though he couldn't understand most of what was going on. He said that that's how Zimbabwean teachers are trained.

Well, sleep has announced itself with no subtlety tonight. Think lots of bricks...

Peace

John

09/03/2003

It seems a shame to pick one emotion or moment from any single day and sell it as being representative. I go through the entire range on any given day - I got quite angry today and I was also quite happy and random. I gave an impromptu Portuguese lesson to a new English teacher, even translating some Changana for him (he's from Zimbabwe). I gave a couple practical lessons on seeds and the two major plant types (monocots and dicots). I organized an all-C... HIV/AIDS meeting for Sunday. These were very pleasing activities. But I was also washing dishes for a while and thinking about how many projects I'm involved in. My student activists want to visit the HIV testing center and the hospital where AIDS patients stay. I have 3 English lessons tomorrow and no lesson plan. I'm trying to accommodate one more group for the English lessons.

All this in one day.

Not to mention cooking a couple meals, doing work for the PC language program, 2 hours of handball, and running a couple errands.

Every day I question my presence here, miss people from home, and learn something new. I ride a rollercoaster from the moment I wake up, never knowing what to expect from the day.

Peace

John

09/02/2003

Wow. It's 11 months to the day that I arrived in Mozambique - and my birthday. What a birthday it was, too.

People really expect you to tell them a week ahead of time that your day is coming up, because they love to prepare and make it special - students and neighbors mostly. People were asking me all day why I didn't announce it - but coming from an American perspective, it just isn't something I would go around announcing. I suppose it's something to look forward to next year.

So anyway, Dinho, Violeta, Jurcia, Albertino, Jorgito, Charles, Annie and Blake got together and baked cakes and took pictures of us eating them. We drank filtered water and listened to the same CDs, talking and laughing about the same stuff, sitting in a room much too small and cluttered. In other words, fantastic. It really felt like family, yelling at Dinho to stop messing around with the music and listening to Jorgito's half-rehearsed, half-improvised birthday song for snare drum (played on a large book with chopsticks).

And in school, I was sung to endlessly, asked tons of questions like, "Are you married?", "Do you have kids?", "How long did you study?", "Where in the US are you from?", "How old are you now?", and in one class, even lifted up by about 10 boys, threatening to carry me out and about school. I managed to get down before being carried out the door, and trying to explain to other teachers that, well, they were just having fun.

I wore my tux almost all day, to mark the occasion, and though everyone laughed, it was a good laugh. They've never seen me so dressed up. I got calls from half a kilometer away by students who could tell today's dress was a little different.

But, as Charles pointed out, you miss home in a different way on your birthday. There's a certain comfort in the way your friends and family celebrate it - even when one of your friends completely forgets (and I count myself in that group), the way you recover is completely different. And maybe you don't get lifted up by a dozen teenagers every time, but being able to reminisce about "last year" is worth its weight in gold.

Still a great day!

Peace

John

09/01/2003

I was standing in front of the class, waiting patiently. I had already chewed out several students for sitting in the back (they were avoiding the sun) and one more for a) forgetting his notebook, b) demonstrating his inability to listen, c) demonstrating his lack of desire, and d) purposefully not trying to answer a very easy question.

So my patient waiting was still tinged with frustration. I had asked a swath of about 20 girls (no exaggeration) to answer a VERY easy question. I only needed one of them. I had drawn a seed on the board, having three parts. We had already labeled two parts and said the name of the third. All I wanted from her was to point to the third part.

One girl got up and came with me to the board. She pointed to the completely wrong place. I explained again very slowly and simply where the three parts were and whic we had identified. Again, she identified the SAME incorrect part. I asked for help.

The "chefe" of the turma came up to her after I asked for someone to explain. He strode up to her and caringly explained the question in dialect. He then restated the question and gave the answer, making her look good and taking the pressure off any other students. It was nice to see, but frustrating.

I gave her the simplest of tasks - it was below what I would consider "learning", but she was incapable simply because she only knows how to parrot. And she's not alone.

How do I start with nothing?

Peace

John

08/31/2003

Let's say, for instance, that the idea of a "ball", a spherical, fist-sized object, is universal. That is to say, it exists in every baby's brain and will be manifested differently depending on what language this child is given to speak. I'm supposing a very Platonic universal schema for seeing the world, but given what we know about the human brain, it seems that there truly are built-in schemas for these ideas, such as balls.

It would be a very inefficient system if, say, confronted with a marble, the baby tried to construct an entirely new schema for a marble. But we use known items. By now, the baby has an idea of large and small, and will say that the marble is a small ball. At some point, the idea of "glass" will be derived from clear things I can touch, etc. And so eventually a small glass ball gets its own word, a "marble".

Interestingly, it seems, once we get a certain number of ideas in our head, it becomes more difficult to construct a schema of something new in our head. There are hundreds of different ways to think about a "marble" in the adult brain - for instance: large, smooth pebble; one in a set of marbles; etc. But if we want to talk to someone about the colors of our marbles, the schema of "marble" has to be adequately constructed. A "marble" cannot be "white round thing" in the complicated adult brain. Essentially, in order to communicate properly, two brains need to construct different schemas for the same objects in very similar manners. If two brains are talking about two different things, communication will never happen.

So here's the trap of education. In Biology, the "marble" is a type of leaf, the way the roots take up water, or how a seed becomes a full-grown plant. There are two major ways that these ideas can be transmitted. The first, and most common, is to simply memorize the words, essentially constructing a schema out of letters and phrases. The second, and an expressed goal of education, is to use the learner's current knowledge of cells, growth, roots, water, leaves, etc., and put these ideas together in a new way and give it a new name.

The danger in the second manner is that the schema is explicitly taught and so the learners simply copy the teacher's schema. It makes sense to the learner, the teacher and can often be tested immediately to demonstrate knowledge. But knowledge acquired by imitating doesn't stick as well as if the learner is forced to create their own schema.

As Fosnot said, there are two main approaches to having the learner create these schemas. The first is to let the learner create a schema and then let them discover if and why it is wrong, correcting their own errors. The second is to moderate the schema, building one slow step at a time. In reality, both are slow processes.

But because it is possible to feign knowledge of a great many things, education is often seen as a quantity and not quality of knowledge. Which then causes curricula to be created that are overambitious and do not allow for this assisted schema-building which can create truly educated people.

So while I'm still introducing "marbles" to my students, slowly and one at a time, I'm giving them a crack at the whole curriculum. Maybe I can give them enough practice at schema building that they, if motivated, can practice it on their own.

Peace

John

08/30/2003

I'm not quite sure why, but I've felt very lucky to have a college degree. I never, at any point, felt I worked hard specifically for the degree, because I was always working hard in an individual subject, trying to get my mind around the material. There was an end goal in mind, but it never felt like a piece of paper - or even the idea of a diploma - could be a proper manifestation of multiple individual battles. Now, with some time and plenty of distance behind me, I'm seeing that. I'm seeing that, indeed, it's one of the few hard copies, or proof, that you've worked your ass off. And sometimes, though idealistically not necessary, this proof is very necessary to keep you going through months of recognition-less work. Even the idea of recognition grates on me, admitting that what others think, is necessary to internal success. But when you're doing things for other people, there are no other measures.

I think that's my step back from the wall for today. I don't know that I have had enough time to take a good, long look for a few weeks.

Friday was extremely busy, including spending almost three hours hand-writing a proposal after the town lost power, and the computer lab essentially was reduced to a very expensive small room.

Falling asleep at the work table had one advantage, though - mefloquine-induced dreams. I even had my first Changana dream, a result of speaking more and more of it every day, learning new words all the time. Pretty cool, because it started off in Portuguese.

As a result of all this local language learning, however, I'm noticing that my Portuguese is pretty stagnant. I suppose there's an upper limit as to how much language one can take in. Though I think it only applies to speaking, or it's that the understanding half hasn't hit the wall just yet. I'm understanding a LOT more Portuguese than I did just a few months ago - and Changana.

Peace

John

Tuesday, September 09, 2003

08/20/2003

Some days can only be explained by listing the events of the day, then some time later, when there's time, explain:

6:00 Wake up
6:20 Wash dishes, take shower
6:50 Leave for police station where Diamentino's sister is supposed to meet us.
7:30 Without her, I go up to courtroom to see what's going on
7:40 Have lengthy argument over legal processes, including the public right to see the charges brought against the prisoner, but back off before causing a big scene.
8:00 Report back to Blake, who hasn't seen Diamentino's sister, that it looks like D will have a hearing today or tomorrow and a possible trial on Friday.
8:20 Arrive at D's sister's house, nobody around, so continue on to see if I can find the multilingual and well-traveled Reverend Wilson.
8:30 A friend of D's finds me and says that D is in the courtoom and they're waiting for me.
8:40 Arrive in waiting room, where said friend and sister are waiting.
8:50 Diamentino enters the secretary's office
9:20 He's released, but restricted to the district. Cheers and confusion.
9:40 Make myself breakfast.
10:00 Young many heading up an HIV/AIDS group arrives. We talk for a while.
10:50 Go out to talk to VUKOXA and buy coconuts.
11:00 Arrive at VUKOXA, talk...
11:30 Return home with coconuts, rush to go to school and...
11:40 Have meeting with HIV/AIDS activists until...
12:45 My first class starts and I'm in classes until...
3:10 When I go home to grab lunch, then at...
3:40 Go check mail and buy bread, returning home about...
4:15 So I can go back to school.
4:20 Teach my last two lessons.
5:55 Go back to VUKOXA
6:00 Enroll a couple more people in the classes while doing schoolwork.
7:30 Eat dinner that Blake brought to VUKOXA for me.
8:45 And then return home so I can do more schoolwork, then...
9:30 Talk with Eric for an hour,
10:30 Finish up work and finally
11:30 Go to bed.

I'm getting up at 6 AM again tomorrow.

Peace

John

08/19/2003

Some days you think everything's going somewhat normally and then...bam!

Somewhat.

I woke up at 4:30 this morning to the sound of concrete being chipped away. They started working on the blocked line to our septic tank and we had a fully functioning crapper by 8:00, at the expense of sleep. Once again, there's nothing like a good poop to set you right again.

In between, I taught my early morning English lesson on the verb "to be". Winged it, turned out well. And by "winged it", I mean I didn't know what I was going to teach until I got there. But that allows me to feel out where their needs are and address those, rather than prescribing to them what I think they need.

Cleaned my room, did some busy work, made an eggplant curry for dinner. Went to school, taught about pollination, and the formation of the flower, and had some fun with my students.

Headed back to VUKOXA to open matriculation for the night English classes and a little while later, found out Diamentino was in jail.

He's being held on the charge of defamation for a public statement he made while doing theater on city day. So I found Blake, Blake ran into Diamentino's sister, and then after discussing exactly what happened, grabbed a friend of Blake's who could help us out, to see exactly what was going on.

It looks like we'll be going to the hearing tomorrow morning and in the interest of sleep and avoiding anything politically touchy, I'll say...

Peace

John

Monday, September 08, 2003

08/18/2003

We've had a shitty problem lately. The toilet is not draining correctly, and due to poor construction, is backing up directly into the bathroom. We have very slow plumbers on the job. I wish I had a latrine instead of a toilet.

On a light note, I've been pondering the meaning of life.

I think my philosophical stance doesn't quite account for the question completely, which is comforting in a way because it gives my spiritual thought some direction. But that direction isn't quite clear because my beef is with the fact that thought without death there cannot be life, how is it that death is forever and life is temporary? And though I've already tried to answer this question for myself hundreds of times, I don't know that I've come to a satisfactory answer at any point.

I don't get the whole idea of a soul that has always existed and will always exist, because I still have the scientific idea that consciousness is a chemical process. Which should lead me to the conclusion that life is a chemical process as is death. But there's a part of me that is unhappy with that answer on an analytical and visceral level. What is this chemical process that allows us to create names for everything that causes our consciousness? Or is that simply it? Our consciousness exists on the level it does because it is made of the only things it can describe. So what I'm saying is there could very well be something else out there, it's just that we're incapable of discovering it as chemical reactions. Maybe this next "level" is what commonly gets classified as "god" and everything else supernatural and doesn't even care that this dimension of reality exists. I'm going to sit on this...

Peace

John

08/17/2003

Whew. City Day in my town. Wow. Last night, Phillip, Nimi and I painted the town red. Charles, Annie, Dinho, Blake, Albertina all joined us going down to the stadium to see the "spectacle". Well, we were eight of about 2000 people with the same idea.

Admission, unexpectedly, was 5 state-subsidized condoms. All you had to do was present the condoms...but you had to have the condoms. So they were selling boxes upon boxes in the ticket booth. Surrounding the window was a very drunken crowd of about 100 men, pushing and shoving to buy condoms. Phillip and I joined the fray.

We shoved our way halfway through, then realized we were stuck. I lifted Phillip as high as I could, about three feet off the ground. Getting help from others who wanted to assist the white people, he threw money at the condom seller and received a box (about 50 condoms). We pulled him down and immediately, Phillip and I ran for cover, being held and pushed by very condom-hungry Mozambicans.

Phillip kneeled down on the ground in order to get the box into his jacket so we could get out of the mob and I fended everyone off by throwing fake punches and pretending to go crazy, yelling in Changana/English and swinging my arms and legs wildly. He got up and ran for the entrance, meeting up with everyone else. The security guards first let Phillip and I in, then little by little, yanked the others into the stadium while police on the other side whipped the ground to control the crowd.

Once in, we calmed down a little, but that was quickly offset by the excitement of being at a real concert for the first time in town. Full sound system, lights and instrumentation.

The people sitting in the bleachers were pretty calm and sad-looking, so we decided to try and cheer them up. Well, I decided to. So I bargained with a vendor close to the bleachers to stand on his freezer to dance for the crowd. As I did, standing on top of a large refrigerator unit, the song ended.

It was VERY funny.

Peace

John

08/15/2003

Some days make me wonder what would happen if Pavlov came into my school and taught for a month. I figure he would just stand there, motionless and slack-jawed, shaking his head, saying "I was wrong."

I had a hard emotional day, so I free-association doodled. It was fun.

I heard there have been massive power outages. I can't imagine NYC without power. It's funny how dependent we get on such fickle things.

Like chocolate. Tober sent some. Though I devoured it, I am eternally grateful.

"Pedunculo" is a funny word.

Peace

John

08/14/2003

Americans are really good at utilizing informational resources that are in scarce supply or in strange places, to create greater, better organized informational resources. We grow up in this informational environment and so become quite adept at manipulating it.

Likewise, Mozambicans seem to be adept at utilizing scarce physical resources to create better...things. My students, every last one, are incredibly resourceful because they've grown up in an environment that calls for doing a lot with a little.

In school, I ask my students to manipulate information like Americans would. And can I expect them to know how? I guarantee almost every single American would be at a loss when faced with a concrete wall, something to attach to the concrete wall, and no hardware store (answer: hammer a hole using a railroad tie nail, and fill it with the skinned branch of an acacia tree, screwing into the branch.) As they see my "real world" knowledge as sometimes poor, I need to have the same patience that they show me as I teach what I consider to be "real world" knowledge.

And just teaching - it's a process that every human does, just like learning. Though I'm getting closer to that basic, universal ability to teach and seeing what it really involves (and seeing that a certain amount of theater is necessary), I'm still pretty far away from figuring out how basic learning happens and how I can use it in class. I think I've figured out that it's a much slower process in terms of facts, memorizing and such, than our curricula reflect. Though in terms of concepts, I think we underestimate what students are capable of when we relate concepts to already familiar situations.

This theory-over-substance view can be prohibitive if I let myself believe it's an all-or-nothing proposition. That is to say, if I can't teach a curriculum that is concept-based, I shouldn't put my best effort into teaching. But I shouldn't think that way - just like the curriculum is not completely fact-based, my lessons would necessarily sometimes focus on raw facts.

So although I'm getting closer to figuring out the "ideal learner" and how to teach to that learner, my main challenge will continue to be balancing the curriculum.

Peace

John

Friday, September 05, 2003

08/13/2003

I was in the middle of dictating - well, one of my students was dictating information that they should have already had in their notebooks - and there was a knock on the door. It was one of the women who rings the bell and keeps an eye on the chalk. She said that Laurenco wanted to see me right away.

I quickly wracked my brain - what did I do wrong? I felt like a student called in to go to the principal's office over the PA. Even if you know you did nothing wrong, there's this nagging fear they found SOMETHING. I expected to walk in seeing Laurenco, the director, and several other administrators seated, looking grim.

Instead (clearly), Laurenco was in good spirits and alone. The universal look of "I have a favor to ask" easily identified by its half-smile appeared on his face. He was asking me to type an urgent letter up. All of the secretaries were already gone, so nobody was around who knew how to type.

Relieved, I agreed. Luckily, my current class was handling itself and so I wasn't falling behind. I saddled up to the manual typewriter (nothing electric about it) and noticed something odd. The keys for Q and A were switched, the same with W and V. I focused, looking directly at the keys and managed to avoid making egregious errors. Though I discovered there was no "enter" button (silly carriage), button for the number one (very economical) or zero. Instead capital I and O are used. My light-hearted observations were taken very...abruptly. My director was very thankful and obviously relieved!

Peace

John

08/12/2003

I got frustrated today, as I do most every day I teach. I had just started class and was asking the students how many cells meiosis produces, giving plenty of time for the response. The answer is fairly literally in all of their notebooks as it was dictated to all of them. (The correct answer is 4.)

A couple seconds after I asked the questions, numbers came spewing out. The first number gets repeated by 10-15 other students. It's always incorrect. Then the guessing gets going. It's actually quite incredible how many wrong answers they can come up with, as if they knew the right one all along.

And I know that just coming up with the right answer isn't good enough, which is why I wait.

But what ticks me off is that they don't look in their notebooks. They don't even try to think. I know this because they tell me. On some level, I knew this too. I knew the majority of my students would sit in class every day looking to do anything but pay attention. And I pander to them, teaching so rudimentally and slowly that if they're not keeping up, they MUST be left behind. I pare down the curriculum to skin and bones so that I'm essentially only teaching one "thing" every day, and most refuse to try and understand that one "thing".

Simply, it comes down to one thing. Desire. I may make the lesson as exciting as possible and the reasons to know the material as urgent as possible, but when it comes to understanding, there's no sense of "I want to understand that." There are a few students who ask intelligent questions, but then (like all of the others), simply try and memorize the answers. I know that if I put information in a table and later ask any question associated with the info, I'll get back the table. It's how my students were taught to learn. Can I turn things around in two years?

Peace

John

08/11/2003

I've got my own little education experiment going. Since I have eight classes of varying levels and I have to teach the same material to every one, I figured this would be a good opportunity to experiment. My Portuguese and teaching abilities are at the level where I can write down for a lesson plan "Separate into groups, label drawings on board", instead of a page and a half of in-detail directions.

I'm teaching meiosis right now, which is the process of cell division which produces gametes, like sperm and eggs. I already taught mitosis, which is cell division that happens in every other cell in plants and in our bodies. The two are very similar, but have important differences.

Meiosis has eight phases, so I took the ordeal of presenting these phases and understanding what they mean, as the variable in my experiment. The students already have written descriptions of each phase, but haven't yet seen the drawings which are crucial to understanding how the DNA becomes replicated.

So I came up with four ideas on introducing the material to try out with two turmas each. The first is to simply go phase by phase, asking for volunteers to draw the phase from the descriptions in their notebooks. The second is a slight variation where I split the class into groups and they write all eight phases in their groups, then share the correct responses, correcting errors along the way. The third is to draw all eight phases on the board, but out of order. In pairs, the students confer and then make the correct order. The last is to break the students up into groups, giving each group a set of drawings on paper. They have to put these drawings in order and label them.

Today, I did all but the last one for the first time. So far, the second approach has been most successful, but it was with my best group during the first period. One group finished very quickly and had the correct answers, so I told them they were going to teach the rest of the class how they had done it. They got up in front of everyone, and with my prodding, explained every step and drew it on the board.

I'm also doing a "practical" that involves playing around with plants and soil. It's fun mixing things up and bringing students out of the classroom.

Peace

John

08/10/2003

I took a nice long walk today. I took a right turn out of my house and kept on going, about 3 miles into farmland. It was incredible.

The horizon is visible at any moment for miles and miles around, making the sky look absolutely enormous. It looks as if you'll run into thick forest if you walk for 5 miles in any one direction, but it's an optical illusion. There were sparsely arranged trees everywhere, and because it's so flat, the edges of what can be seen look like thick forest.

And the farms are all different. Different crops, arrangements, irrigation, sizes. But they're binding quality is their graceful imperfections. There are no perfectly straight lines. No plants are at exactly the same height. But the intention of straight lines and consistency is obvious - the hard manual labor necessary to produce this aesthetic is downright intimidating. Though there were only a few farmers out (whom I greeted in Changana), it felt like I could see thousands toiling over the soil.

The wind frolics over these crops, and when you're walking by a taller plant like corn, it speaks. The wind brings the voices of hundreds of birds, all nonchalantly looking for their lunch, a mate, or just a place to take in the sights. There are birds like sparrows, who seem to always be hyperactive and jovial. But I was surprised, pleasantly so, to see long-necked, lumbering birds I couldn't even begin to name. Assessing their lives in a stately manner, they look back at you as if you were just another big bird.

There was a pair of elegant white heron-looking birds sitting next to one of the irrigation lines. They were scanning the horizon in unison - searching for nothing in particular. I slowly approached, wanting to see them fly away, but not in a panic. A couple minutes and a few yards later, they did, in a wonderfully blinding flourish of meter-long wingspans. Their feathers, perfectly preened and uniform, reflected the sunlight so precisely, I could only say "wow".

Ebi stopped by Friday evening and as he was leaving, I went with him to "accompany" him, a cultural difference I'm still getting used to. You typically walk with people who are leaving your home for a while. I guess the intention is to make sure they know their way and are safe, but I think it's just an outgrowth of the general African feeling that being social is necessary and forms the very foundation of society.

While we were talking, we hit on the subject of "changing the world". He's as idealistic as I am, but knows his limits. He said that he wants to change how his fellow Mozambicans come to rely on foreign money and assistance, but knows he can't change it all at once. He wants to go to college in the UK, come back, and settle into a community where he can bring some real change on an individual, personal level.

I said that that sounds like what I'm doing. We agreed that it's very difficult, but not impossible to exact change in people who are from a completely different culture. The exception comes in leading by example, which is not as integrated a change an individual can make, but it is still change.

You can't mandate that people change from a different culture because you don't have the collective subconscious that is required to make decisions and integrate your personality seamlessly. You can empower others to make change, inspire others to make change in themselves, but any change that you make is short-lived and narrow. I think it's important to recognize that because even within your own culture, these rules exist. Until you work on an individual basis, is it possible to really change someone. And then, with that power, you have to ask yourself if it's wise to do or not.

Really, I'm trying to say - and Ebi was trying to say to me - that change always comes from within. Change is always something desired by the person who will change, who decides what and who to listen to. Maybe, however, there is some room here. Maybe being the person who inspires someone to seek to change is what we're looking to be.

Peace

John