Thursday, September 30, 2004

09/10/2004

There are moments in life where everything just magically comes together - the happiness and sadness, the fatigue and energy, the shock and routine.

I just finished reading a letter from the States, whipped from teaching a bunch of lessons today, but it totally picked me up. Then my mind went to the news that a young neighbor of ours died this afternoon because his car went into the canal and he couldn't get out. And I can hear people wailing. So what right do I have to have any happiness? To even see balance in this craziness?

It's that I think I've accepted life. Life will play around with me, it will give me moments to mourn and moments to celebrate, but I can't wallow or pity myself because there are a thousand people behind me waiting for things to be half as good as I have them. I love working this hard - it gives me great opportunities and chances to grow and experience life.

This man who died, embodied this spirit - he fixed cars and loved it - he was friendly to all and patient in showing others his craft. So what, that he wasn't making all that much money? The wailing continues.

I know, it's so predictable, considering one's own mortality after a death close to oneself - but really, there's a lot I haven't figured out yet about this world. I mean, it's clear to me that Mozambicans are less preoccupied about the HIV problem than Westerners in Mozambique are. And it makes sense. The "problem" is relatively new, the social stigmas are numerous, and there are tons of other problems aside from HIV that preoccupy people here (like malaria, tuberculosis and childhood diseases). So why be worried? Why be worried about a disease that kills you over the course of years, when that's what the average life amounts to? The life expectancy is approaching 30 here, and it could go below. Why not live a sexually risky life, when all you're risking is the possibility of dying a little sooner? Honestly, for the Mozambicans, I can't justify them using a condom and all the social problems attached to it. I think the only solution is fidelity - but who's to mandate a social solution who doesn't come from this society?

And so, if we're all equal, how does it come out in the end? How do millions of 30-somethings pass through this world whose impact on it is minimized? What's the point? I suppose it's to enjoy life and really do what your heart wants - to follow your instincts. We are, after all, animals, and we follow our instincts. So why can't that be enough? Because our imaginations get us going - how can life exist without a purpose? How can it be a billion-year chemical experiment without some sort of grand design? Can all this be accidental? It's all so cliche. Because, in the fact of death and mortality, I believe it. I think that, whatever really happened, it doesn't affect me now and now is the only time I've got. If it turns out that I get more time down the line, I'll take advantage of that opportunity when it comes along. But the idea of sitting down and having a "career" so I can work 20 years and one day relax a bit is so far from the reality I feel here in Mozambique that I just want to avoid it...completely. Forsaking the moment for some unknown and unlikely future is foolish.

Peace

John

09/09/2004

Jamy, Dan and I sat down with a bunch of students today and talked about their perspectives on HIV/AIDS. I realized that I rarely talk about this with them, and that Jamy and Dan's presence really helps me ask the hard questions.

The problems they identified aren't surprises - using condoms is difficult because it's not a habit, women don't have the power to tell the men to use them, and men don't think to use them when they are dealing with a woman they see as "safe". And they hear fidelity pumped in all the time in church and through other means, but they see fidelity as something only married people can ever achieve as young people will always play around. And the fidelity that's preached to them is "one partner for life", because it's preached alongside abstinence until marriage. So it's just not a viable option.

But the activists still have hope; they still think that they can turn people around with enough help from superiors, money and more of what they're doing.

I just wish the church would stop f...ing things up.

Peace

John

Tuesday, September 28, 2004

09/08/2004

Well, it was a fun birthday party - lots of food, dancing and music. Of course, my students showed up at 8 in the morning (it was supposed to be 10) and started cooking, going until 6 in the evening. I helped them out on peeling the potatoes, then got involved in my own project of making pizza. An upshot to making the pizza was that we had to buy a tremendous amount of cheese, so much so that we have had to eat it out of necessity rather than desire. Still good - but I don't think I'll ever be able to eat Gouda again. (This is MOM -- GOUDA on pizza??!!!)

About halfway through the party, it was time to cut the cake and get down to the real business - eating it. Everyone loves cake and so everyone wants it - all of the neighborhood kids, all of the neighbors. It got to be so bad that the head chefs called the distribution off with about 1/3 of the cake left, brought it inside the house, and started to get their fill. It was well-deserved and well worth it. But what I don't get is that they only partied for about 3 hours, and spent all day getting ready for it. The students I spoke with were very happy with the party, but I guess I just don't understand yet what makes for a "good time". I suppose I would think the same thing about an American party if I were Mozambican.

But one thing happened during the party that really struck me. For the first time here, I didn't feel American. I felt like everyone I was talking to was speaking my language, just in different words. I went up to people and treated them just like any friends in the States - no pretenses, just there to have a good time and chat. Maybe it's just all as a result of finally accpeting my role here and figuring out the positives in it.

So why leave NOW? Well, it still isn't my comfort zone. I can do that for 3 hours and interact with Mozambicans the majority of the day, but it's still incredibly tiring. It's not what my body has been trained to do. But at the same time, I've trained my body to do it and now I feel like I will lose something by not having that interaction. A part of me will definitely stay here.

Onias, a Zimbabwean here, is an incredible artist and gives Oscar, a Mozambican, a run for his money. I plan on getting works from both of them before I leave, possibly commissioned.

Jamy, sister of a former PCV and an RPCV herself, came to visit with her fiance today, Dan. They're here to do some research on HIV/AIDS in the field, and here is apparently a good place to turn to. We spoke a lot tonight about life and what is funny about Mozambique. I got the feeling that this conversation is indicative of the ones I'll be having back in the States, except that these will be mundane. But I'm excited to see someone else see these things for the first time and get the chance to talk with real Mozambicans about real problems. Tomorrow we'll get that chance and I hope they gain some insights.

Peace

John

09/02/2004

Cool birthday. All my 10th graders threw me little parties - one brought a radio, one brough me cake, candy and a present (deodorant!), one baked a cake, and bought socks, and one even bought (sorry, caught) me a pigeon. They presented me with the pigeon in a cookie box, and the pigeon flew out as it was presented, narrowly missing my head, strewing feathers everywhere. They then made me dance to several songs they had made up or learned, dancing themselves as well. They made up one song in Changana, "Kufunda ku vava, a hi nyika mazero" which roughly means "Learning hurts, you give us zeroes!" But they said it with a smile on their faces.

And really, that was the theme for the day. It was on and off stormy - one minute sunny, the next rainy. You could appreciate the rain because it was a relief and the sun because it dried everything up again.

When I arrived at school, late-ish, I was in my tux and walked into a protest. Some of the older students were protesting that one group never has to wear their uniforms, while they are required to. So they all showed up out of uniform, which was the impetus for getting into a shouting match with the director of the school. At which moment I arrived and all of the 10th graders went nuts (who had nothing to do with this). It was wonderful.

And then, the rain.

One of my 10th graders who's in my own turma, has been sick since last Friday with measles. I went to visit her today, bringing oranges, and luckily ran into a friend of hers who was also on her way. We wound through the corridors together, finding the right area which was packed full of patients, on the floor, all along the walls...well, it was too much. And Felicidade, my student, was doing pretty poorly. I'm not sure she'll remember my visit, but her mother who is taking care of her will remind her. I didn't know what to say, but I suppose being there was most of it. Oranges just seemed so petty. When I left, I've never wanted to stay here more than in that moment. To make a difference!

Final planning for the Saturday party happens tomorrow. I'm actually not looking forward to the party because those things stress me out, but I'm trying to avoid that by delegating responsibility.

Peace

John

09/01/2004

Tomorrow's my birthday. Almost forgot.

I've been reading a Sports Illustrated issue about athletes' lives after sports. And it occurred to me that, despite having careers of every sort, Americans don't really DO anything, make lots of money and get fat. Even people who help out aren't actually doing much of anything; they just make it look like it. People here work on their farms, break their backs for a couple of dollars doing whatever labor they can find. Where does that money come from? People who are richer, who own big things. How does someone get rich? They use their smarts to get a bigger chunk of the foreign money coming in to the country, which accounts for the majority of the economy. And who provides much of that? You got it. What do we import from Mozambique? Nothing. We just keep it poor.

What? That makes no sense, right? We give a country money and keep it poor. Well, we give a country money to do specific things, our priorities, and we ensure our own interests which are things like cheap oil, food and clothes. If Mozambique could afford to sell food to us or produce clothes we wanted, would they "need" so much of our money?

So here's the rub. If America stops spending money domestically, subsidizing local industry and promoting international competition, we lose jobs. But we reduce taxes because we're not subsidizing domestic industry and we can cut back on foreign spending because we would allow foreign economies to thrive. Which creates jobs. Specifically, more jobs where people DO something. The math is probably quite complicated and I clearly haven't taken everything into account. But my conclusion is that Americans like the sterilized office life because it is safe and you don't actually have to do anything - leave that to the handful of farmers, doctors and teachers who all suffer in often inadequate conditions.

I want to do something. I will. I am.

Peace

John

08/30/2004

Aaaaahhh!

I just finished reading in Time magazine - er, skimming through it - and I'm exhausted. It's not the hopelessness of it all, it's that it's all so predictable - all this political bullshit - that it just makes me see the future as predictable as well. There seems to be no such thing as change in this world; there are just inexplicable drifts as humanity approaches certain extremes. Who could have predicted that Asia would usurp Africa's place in the international HIV/AIDS community as the biggest problem? And not because the African "problem" got solved? Anyone could have predicted that a leader who speaks like his constituents, would be popular enough to get reelected no matter what; but who could have predicted that "what", and how little it really seems to affect things. So a new president gets elected, does the world take a deep breath? So what about me, sitting in the middle of one of the world's worst health crises, this deadly combination of malaria and HIV? Does it matter here? And if not, what does? I can't even see the worst of it, nor do I want to. You want to see suffering? Just to know it exists? To feel human yourself? This is what really changes the world, right here. People who get embroiled in the lowest common denominator and have to reconcile it with decadence. It's we who change the world because we are changed in a society that accepts us, make that two societies, and we maintain influence in those spheres over those we know well. That's how change happens.

Aaaaaaaahhhhh!!!

Change. I babble on about it as if it is a purely positive thing, unalterable in its very nature, promoting some sort of wonderful future. What if it's all wrong? What if the very idea of changing the world from the group up, little by little, is just fundamentally flawed. What if influence really is Hollywood...the majority of human beings in the world are more likely to trust Toby Maguire than someone like me? That my voice, that my presence, and that of thousands of my neighbors is just a presence that is fleeting and mortal and like me, will pass along with time.

I made peace with the fact that we are all in search of immortality, quite a long time ago. Inevitably, it leads me on a search for my own. And it must have been that this search eventually led me to come here and just do it - to keep pushing the boundaries of what I have tried in my life, in order to find that one thing I can dedicate myself to and completely dominate. Have I accomplished that? No. I have just stretched the boundaries further, predictably, making it harder to figure all this out. Because I'm not sure that the basis of my decision was valid. Who's to say I need to choose something? Who's to say that the change I might exact would be good? Maybe the lack of moral compass in my life has sent me into a recursive tailspin. I have no compass to follow other than my own, and it keeps changing as I keep trying to follow it. I'm not sure whether I feel like a blind man in a vision-based world, or the only person who can see in a tactile world. I prefer the latter. The idea being that what you're seeing doesn't make sense because nobody prepared it to be seen, so you don't know which way to go or what to think, because there is no plan, there is no right solution. And you're not sure you're seeing anything because nobody's there with you to confirm it all. But I see it, I really do. I see how my interactions will affect people here - I see how people will react. I see my emotions and my fears and I deal with them well before I have to. I know myself intensely well. And maybe all this is enough. To see - in a blind world. I'm not so arrogant that I think I'm the only one.

And I'm not so tunnel-visioned to ignore the fact that a day's events can turn emotions on a dime to an unrecognizable state.

One of my students had an epileptic seizure today, and so we rushed him to the hospital before we knew what it was, or why. I had to ask my director for a ride, which he agreed to do somewhat reluctantly. I think his tune changed when he saw the student he was transporting. And when we got to the hospital, after giving the student a proper bed, I sat in the waiting room and watched his doctor take a smoke break of sorts. He's fine, but I nearly lost it when an old chapa came by, practically flinging a woman bleeding from both hips, out of the back onto the steps of the hospital and left her there. The hospital moved slowly - I considered helping her, but I was too stunned to move (partially by the psychological phenomenon of thinking someone else would do something, but I've conquered most of my group conditioning for that.) The hospital eventually brought her in, but only after she had taken six steps and collapsed again. What's wrong with me? She made it in and everyone in the waiting room was babbling that she had AIDS. (You want to know why there's problems here? This is a large, urban hospital, and the mentality is that she must have AIDS. Western-style education has done nothing.)

So I visited my student, who was with two of his friends, went back to school to teach two more lessons, home to eat lunch for an hour, back to school to meet with a teacher, then back home for dinner. And with this teacher I found out that the room of the epileptic and also that other girl I helped a month or two ago, as well as that fight I had to break up last year, is a cursed room. Apparently, someone died in it some years ago. And it's room 13. That number doesn't have any meaning here, but I explained what it meant to this other teacher and she couldn't believe it.

And I just thought of it now, but the kid who died last year at school was on his way to that room. Yes, coincidence, I know.

Peace

John

Saturday, September 25, 2004

08/25/2004

Where am I? Oh yes, that's right, I'm in Mozambique. I'm trying to give a quiz to my 12th graders, who happen to behave like 4th graders on speed, and they will not shut up. One starts to tell a proverb to me, in direct violation of my orders to be silent - so I tell him to leave immediately.

He doesn't.

I tell him to leave again and again...nothing. So I threaten him with an unjustifiable absence (a big deal) if he doesn't leave. He doesn't. I ask him his name. He won't say. I ask the chefe what his name is. The chefe gives me a wrong name. I give the chefe an unjustifiable absence. I ask again his name, this time threatening to not give the ACS (quiz). He says nothing. I leave. The students cheer and wail. Zeroes all around.

I help a student with their mathematics homework. They're asked to convert the base of a logarithm, but don't know that any number divided by itself is "1". In chemistry class, I offer them practice questions for the exams. The chemistry is not all that hard and they get it easily. The math, however, in spite of my best efforts to simplify it, is difficult for them. Like four squared. Is it eight? or sixteen? According to dozens of 12th graders who are doing this math every day, it's eight.

I discuss with Nanosh my problems with the 8th grade Biology students. They, for the most past, memorize (or try to) everything. We imagined what it would be like if we, in America, were taught in schools in another language unrelated to our own (Chinese, for example) concepts that would be difficult to understand in our own language, by people who barely understand them. Would we be doing any better than these students? How would our Chinese be? How about our chemistry? And math?

I think this society - built around what rich countries do now that they're rich, not built around how people get rich - only breeds people who know how to exploit the system and its inherent flaws. Such as a basis in intrinsic meaning. There's an educational system - but it's there to produce certificates and more teachers. No inherent value of education. And can that happen inductively?

There are churches, but they are around to make pastors rich and people happier. What about spirituality? That happens anywhere BUT in church.

Richard Feynman, in his book, explains how there is a group of Pacific Islanders who were invaded by Allied troops and their island used as a way station. The war ended and troops left, and so did all of the food they were receiving from the airplanes that would land. So the islanders built a runway, constructed a tower, and even made reed headphones for the man who sat in the tower, just like the Allied forces had. And they prayed - no, expected food to come.

They saw the world around them suddenly and (MOM can't read the next word) all of it without knowing what it was and why it was there.


I walk back home with bread and tomatoes today, passing construction projects. I think, what separates me and a licensed teacher? Is it just a piece of paper?

I've seen that there are plenty of people in this world who act like they know so much, but they just know facts and act upon those facts. They call themselves experts, but they're idiot savants. And then there are people who live and experience and try and fail and sometimes succeed. These people are not experts. But I'd much rather a doctor of the second type operated on me than the first. Because a doctor of the second type knows that mistakes are human and instead of being deathly afraid of making any mistakes, and acting only within the boundaries of his knowledge, he puts himself on the line and knows his limits. The first doesn't see limits - the first tries to shape reality into his perceptions and the second shapes his perceptions into the reality - he looks to constantly alter how he perceives the world, to be a more accurate representation of it. The first thinks he already knows the world and no change is necessary.

I feel like 95% of the teachers and students here are that first doctor.

Peace

John

08/23/2004

Just because I wrote a treatise on cheating doesn't mean I've eliminated it. I still had to deal with a ton of cheating in the 10th graders' first quizzes this trimester, including a whole turma that I had to punish because I could hear them discussing the answers among themselves. And this week, I give the first quizzes to the 12th graders which seems to always be a struggle.

This weekend, taking a walk along the river, in a thick foresty area just under an hour from home, I saw monkeys. A whole family (or clan, as it were)! And in the wild! It only took two years, but I finally saw my first real wildlife here - and it was thrilling. These were pretty large tree-dwelling, butt-picking, tail-flashing, head-bobbing monkeys who were as interested in me as I was in them. Whenever I caught one peeking out at me, it would look away and head for cover.

Speaking of monkeys, I've been talking about the evolution of man lately. And today, one of my students asked me if it was true that white people come from God, and black people come from monkeys. I said "No!", then explained, again, the theory. Up till now, I have been downright religious about telling kids that they can believe whatever they want, but I want them to try and understand evolution as I'm introducing it. But that was the last straw.

I thought they might have been pulling my leg, so I asked them what church told them that - it was the Catholic church. So I spoke with my 12th graders afterwards and they confirmed it, with more raunchy details.

"Yeah, either from monkeys or mud, depending upon the church." I asked the 12th graders if they believed it, and they seemed pretty set against it, but not completely.

Did I mention how much I love missionaries?

Peace

John

08/18/2004

I've consistently had problems with one of my students in 12th grade in terms of respect, and today I gave him the boot. I told him to come back in a week and a half, when he had more respect for the teacher and was ready to pay attention in class without goofing off.

I would normally think this a ridiculous solution, that it doesn't address the problem, but it does. I have tried it on several occasions now and it seems to work out every single time there's a student who's disrespectful in and out of class - they just thought I couldn't tell. So it was a big game to them, and they thought I wasn't even playing. And all of a sudden, I win. So then our relationship turns human again, and the respect is there because I beat them at their own game.

Hopefully, it'll be one more time with him. What kills me is when it's a good student, and he is.

Less than 4 months before I finish my service here, and the biggest accomplishments have yet to happen.

Peace

John

08/17/2004

How to stop kids from cheating (or realize that you can't):

I got pulled aside on Saturday by one of my pedagogical directors who told me that he has heard from the night class students that I'm giving excellent lessons and better, that the tested material is clearly presented and reviewed so that there's less reason to bring in a cheat sheet; and when you factor in that I give variants of the same test inside the classroom and crack down harshly on cheating, the students say it's NOT WORTH IT to cheat.

Well, I've been here long enough to consider that a complete victory, but as my mother said, they still don't see cheating as WRONG. Right. Well, it's not wrong until the majority of people aren't doing it, and that won't happen until it's not worth it to cheat on a consistent basis, across the different subjects, from 1st to 12th grades. If it ever happens, it will take at least a decade to permeate and depends upon testing procedures and curriculum changes, among other things. For the time being, however, I offer up this how-to guide as a checklist to cut down on cheating, based upon personal observation and the comments of many of my students and of course this pedagogical director. Like usual, I can't claim any scientific basis for this, only my very specific, tortuous experience, in a Southeastern African country, in a large city school.

1. Simplify

Whether it's English, Biology or Chemistry, I've found that students don't acutally understand 95% of what they're told because it's just too damn complicated. Make one objective for the lesson that encompasses one topic that you can explain in 10 minutes. You'll need twice that time to explain it so that 75% of the class can understand it (remember, 25% will NEVER understand no matter what you do) and the rest of your 45 minutes (or whatever it is in that range) to take care of normal day-to-day activities such as homework and practicing the information explained in those 20 minutes. Of course, every lesson is different, but always seek out ways to simplify.

And don't worry about the curriculum, but DO worry about the testing you don't control. When you have to depart from your style of teaching in order to get students to remember information for standardized testing, let them know that is what you're doing. If you can't explain it so that they understand it, let them know you're not expecting them to understand it but don't leave them without an opportunity to try. Which leads to the second point...

2. Extra help

Whether it be office hours, extra sessions, home tutoring, worksheets that are optional, organized group study, or any other form of extra help, it is critical in fighting cheating. Students are less likely to cheat when they understand the material, which simplifying accomplishes to a certain extent. But even the best students don't always get it or can get someone else to explain it when they are absent - and you could always have a bad lesson or two ):! I offer extra sessions for the students who have to take national exams in November, and I require that they come up with THEIR questions and don't just ask me to explain something over again. This contributes to overall understanding, which is really the biggest contributor to avoiding cheating. And it's necessary. How can you justify giving a zero to a student for copying off of their neighbor when you gave a complicated, difficult to understand explanation of something in class and made no effort to try and clarify what you had said?

3. Test preparation

Unless you give tests every three lessons, you need to limit the scope of your tests and give students an idea of HOW you are going to evaluate their comprehension of the material. Many teachers like to use games for their test preparation, but I find that games only serve to motivate the unmotivated to participate and not necessarily to study, rewarding those who already have study skills but not offering any assistance to those who don't. Moreover, games associate knowledge with the game, not with previous knowledge or practical examples. I've found that giving broad questions which require well-researched responses and declaring that the student is not responsible for material outside that research seems to work decently well. I think this aspect is the weakest of my approach to stop cheating, and that a bad preparation means more cheating.

4. Test writing

Write your tests like you write your lessons - don't try anything new on the test (or try not to). Surprise in a testing situation leads to panic and panic leads to cheating. Be consistent in your testing from evaluation to evaluation. If you want to change something structural in your tests, let the students know - they notice patterns in your tests better than you do. Make the test hard enough so that the best students will have to spend at least half the time allotted to it, and the worst students can still finish it up. A de-motivator is seeing a student get up and leave 5 minutes after receiving the test. The most important thing, however, is to write something simple that springs directly from what you did in class.

Though I hate memorization, I still make my tests half-memorization because students tend to memorize (or try) 100% of what you give them.

5. Variants

Give as many different variations of the test that you can get away with. This depends upon tons of factors, but you can almost always give two variants, alternating students who get each variant. I work in a school that has two-seat desks, so I often give two variants, one to each side of the desk. In the case of three sitting at the same desk, I tell the one in the middle to do a different variant than the ones on the ends. More than anything else, this diminishes cheating by lowering the amount of opportunities.

6. Proctoring

Make a few simple rules and stick to them, 100%. Don't let up - don't make the consequences of cheating a question of value. For example, don't take 25% off if someone is caught, because the student will just weigh that against the points they could gain by cheating. Give them a zero, no questions asked. Even if they weren't cheating, they need to learn how to stop LOOKING like they are.

There's no bigger gray area than in proctoring. There are thousands of ways to cheat and one way to NOT cheat. And you can't get all of your students to act in that one way 100% of the time, or even 50%. I let my students' eyes wander, but as soon as I notice that they are using that information, I take their test. No mercy.

In theory, and in my practice, students cheat relatively rarely when you do all this successfully. And the result is contagious. When students know it's not worth it, they tend to take the "coolness" out of it, making it into an issue of respect for the teacher. And that is the most powerful force, as far as I'm concerned. When you can turn cheating into disrespect for the teacher, and the students agree, it creates a personal responsibility for every single student to respect the teacher or to be ostracized...in this culture. Which is to say that this advice is specific, but I hope is't useful to teachers (and students) anywhere.


Today was city day and I got to participate in a skit that the HIV/AIDS activist group put on. I was the doctor and I had a great time being the arrogant Portuguese white guy.

I gave my 8th graders an assignment to keep a dream journal for a week and promised I'd do the same. We'll see how it goes.

Peace

John

08/12/2004

I don't know how you teach chemistry without a periodic table, but when I forget to bring the one I made for my lessons, I feel its absence. I was very happy to have it tonight - it gives a visual side to chemistry which is QUITE necessary.

I've been drawing up extra exercises for my 10th and 12th graders, which have been going over very well. They are afraid of being underprepared for the exams, which I understand. I promised to help out my own turma today by writing exercises in mathematics to be done outside of school, in study groups that they organized. I opened up their notebooks to "Properties of Logarithms". They were given 9 properties of logarithms, without much explanation (or so it seemed) as to how they relate to the exponents that they describe - so I'm sure they don't understand what they're doing, which doesn't make it any easier to understand HOW to do it. And I discovered that one of the properties they're given is just WRONG (a log sub a b = b ---- that was Mom trying to write without a subscript), but I have yet to find a math teacher so that I can discuss this with them.

What happens when you see errors like this is usually that the teacher will look at it strangely, look in their notebook, point at the formula in their notebook and say "Well, it's right here, I didn't copy it wrong", with a slightly confused look on their face. Then, your conversation usually ends with "Yes, that's very interesting. Must be a problem with what MY teacher gave me. I've never seen that before."

And THAT'S what scares me. I feel that, in an American classroom, some student would jump on that immediately, if not proving it wrong then at least asking the teacher how it works. But the whole hierarchical system has seemed to run amok here. People become teachers without any real training to be teachers. You can randomly appoint someone a "chefe" and they will automatically be given more respect and responsibility, regardless of how much of it they truly deserve. And you're ALWAYS looking for the "chefe". So even if the teacher is wrong, they're considered the only authority and so can claim 100% correctness.

Peace

John

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

8/11/2004

Well, I got through another night of dreaming, but this time it was less intense and today was my rest day of the week - only two lessons and lots of lesson planning.

Because of my class load, I haven't had a lot of time to think about the past couple of years or the next few months, but I'm filled with plenty of anxiety about it. I should say, I'm filled with anxiety about the both of them. I don't know if my accomplishments are tangible, and I don't know if I want to evaluate myself (period) and if I do, if I should evaluate myself on "results". In fact, I'd much rather leave the whole thing, figure out how I can use what I've learned here, be satisfied with who I am, and spend less time explicitly improving myself and instead just DOING and BEING. Which is the link between the last two years and the next.

So do I need to be in a new place to take a new approach to life? Am I ready to change gears, from the "student" to the "participant", or is it an unerasable part of me to always be the student, to always put as much on my plate as I can handle? Well, I'd like to try it. And I think I've come up with the parameters of the next step.

First, I have to be unconcerned with what others think about my decision and trust my own judgment. I think I've looked to others to validate my actions for long enough.

Second, I want to be close to those who I've grown close to back in the States - and do away with this seemingly interminable distance and silence.

Third, I want to have the time to listen and to live. I want to have the time to not fall into a routine, which implies a certain amount of business but not an excess.

Fourth, I want to change the world, and I know what that means. It means that you change how the people around you live in small but meaningful ways, enough so that those people will want to do the same thing. And I don't want the credit for it.

Peace

John

8/10/2004

My dreams have been controlling me lately. On Monday, I dreamed about my old house and some people in my life whom I haven't seen for a while, which controlled my entire day emotionally, feeling in this state of suspended dreaming. I guess I returned there last night, with dreams of leaving here and the relationships that will end - and the relative ease of life I'm to look forward to. So my mind was in this funk, brought on by a constant pall, very negative, and all dream-induced. I hope my dreams improve tonight.

Peace

John

8/08/2004

I've got about 4 months left - that's the same amount of time as between arriving in Mozambique and teaching the first two weeks of class, ever.

And I find myself enjoying class, however tedious it may be to grade hundreds of papers and teach on Friday nights. Enough so that I could see myself teaching next year, as well, SOMEWHERE in the world - or doing social work. I can't really decide. But something makes me think that if I end up doing social work, I'll end up in a country or area that doesn't need it all that badly.

Actually, my idea is to just apply for all jobs that sound interesting, whether or not I'm qualified. Let THEM sort it out.

So, any career ideas?

Peace

John

8/05/2004

I'm currently staring at a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, wondering why my students can't understand the four quantum numbers (the 11th graders, yet!) and alternately marveling at the fact that my 10th graders understand natural selection. Speaking of, I'm about to eliminate this PB&J from the gene pool.

Done. (The PBs from Maputo, the Js local.)

It was beautiful. I gave the 10th graders a table of characteristics for six different flies. I asked them, in groups, to choose the two best-suited flies of the six. The resulting chaos was extraordinary if only because it was exactly the heated internal discussion I wanted to create. There was NO right answer. At first, they balked, but then they realized that there doesn't NEED to be a right answer with me, that I want them to just put any answer down as long as they think about the question. I nearly cried. It was a wonderful moment, because suddenly they understood exactly what to do and I was as unnecessary as I've ever been, observing the individual righteousness put an indelible mark into their minds of this lesson. What's more, many chose similar responses even though I made the table without any favor for one fly or another, and the similar responses came from groups sitting far apart.

They THOUGHT, then DISCUSSED inside their cultural framework and came to similar CONCLUSIONS (but not identical) based upon an abstract exercise. For an American educator, this may seem more trivial, but it's the first time in my year and a half that I've witnessed it on such a global scale.

And although the 11th graders don't seem to have a handle on quantum numbers (which go beyond "abstract" into the simultaneous realms of microscopic and unimaginable), I have confidence in my ability to get it across to them in the next lesson.

This week, I have loved teaching. If I were to go back to the States next week, I'd look to continue. A lot can happen between now and my return, but I don't see giving this up just yet.

Peace

John

8/02/2004

Teaching is neat. I walked into my 8th grade classes without a clue as to what to do, because I wasn't able to plan a lesson and was under the impression that I was not going to be their teacher any more - so I gave a review of the past four lessons with a lot of interaction and very interactive demonstrations of concepts, that seemed to be fairly successful. I don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow, but it should be just as spontaneous.

I had to kick one of my students out of school today (for the year!). She had had too many absences and had falsified signatures (plus, her grades were rock-bottom). When I told her what had happened, with a couple of other students present, she started to shake and I could tell she was going to cry, mostly out of anger. Half of me feels badly, because I know she wants to study, but the other half of me realizes that you have to put the effort in to study, or you're just wasting time and money. And she's put in almost no effort.

Went out to dinner with Nanosh and Brooke after Brooke's house was broken into. Half of me can't wait for security again.

Peace

John

8/01/2004

For the first time in Mozambique, I have no clean underwear. As these things happen, I did it quite accidentally, leaving my dirty laundry behind a locked door. Woe is me.

I traveled a bit down to Maputo and took care of some much needed shopping for the last phase of my service here. Differently shaped pasta, peanut butter and soy sauce were my vices this time. Some fresh cumin even came along for the ride.

And so tomorrow I begin the last trimester, guaranteed to be the most memorable as I help 10th and 12th graders pass their Biology and Chemistry exams, respectively. I thought for a while that my writing would start to turn sentimental at this point, but I'm not letting myself get that far ahead. There's still a lot to be accomplished before I get out of here. Reflecting isn't on the list.

I really love teaching.

Peace

John

7/27/2004

I walked into the secretary's office, on a dual mission. The best kind of mission, because if one fails, you've always got another, so you can justify your efforts.

Unfortunately, the second half of the mission was to tell one of the secretaries that her relative had failed the year because of excessive absences and falsification of documents. I've always had a good relationship with her, and was afraid of the consequences of telling her.

So I told her I had news, and that her relative had to be failed. She grabbed my hand and started to walk off, saying "What about that peanut butter you promised me? When are you going to bring that in?" It was a relief to hear that it was no big deal - it was probably what she had expected all along. But it was a surprise, as most of these things are.

I get routinely called into offices, expecting the worst, but end up fixing a fax machine or copier. Then once in a while, I really get ripped into for something I hadn't expected to cause a problem.

And honestly, this is the last challenge of being here - to stop being so surprised. I come in to these situations with a certain list of expectations that I thought I had carefully cultivated over these couple of years only to find that I am once again wrong. Dead wrong. And surprised about that. So what I'm saying is that I just need to stop being surprised about being wrong. I need to let myself be more human and to realize how unpredictable others are.

Interestingly, it was this quality that I noticed in the returned volunteers I had met - a hesitancy to predicts others' actions - that made me admire them so much. And so I want to see that in myself, too.

And, by the way, the other mission I was on was for money which (unsurprisingly) wasn't there.

Surprisingly, however, it arrived an hour later as they said it would.

Peace

John

7/26/2004

You know, I don't think I'd work this hard or this intensely if I thought I'd stay here for a few years. I think the balance would be tipped more to the side of being social than accomplishing things that may have more personal than external meaning.

As it is, I'm giving exercises to my 10th and 12th graders to resolve on their own, and probably exercises to the 11th graders to go research. Maybe all this will pay off some day for them, but it's hard to say. Will it motivate them to step out of a bankrupt system? To try and understand, not just memorize?

Peace

John

7/25/2004

I was walking down the street towards what I call home now, thinking about a couple of points. It was dusk, with a thin mist hovering three feet above the ground everywhere. A cool evening, but nothing abnormal. As I looked around, I saw people entering houses, waiting for the night, meeting up with family they haven'd seen in days, weeks or months. Fires burned in yards, and around those fires were conversations about what happened today and the typical reactions ("Liar!", "You're crazy!") So the points that were swimming around in my head were the idea of "family day" and the Changana definition of home. As marked in the official calendar, December 25th here is "family day" instead of Christmas, in order to be non-denominational. But it's another example of Western influence. It assumes that you don't spend enough time with your family, but even the most estranged families here make time for each other once a year aside from the mandated December 25th. It just seems silly to me that people accept "family day" as a norm.

More to the positive side of things, but still along the same lines, I've been thinking about what home means. In different contexts, my home is alternately Mozambique, Cleveland and Connecticut. So which is it? Where do I live? In Changana, the word for "to live" (in this sense) is "kutsama" which also means "to sit". So now, I live in Mozambique. But this definition allows for plenty of change - you can always choose to sit somewhere else. As I was thinking it might be nice to "sit" in the south and teach at a school in the States that was in analagous condition to this one here. Yet another idea.

Peace

John

7/23/2004

It's been pretty relaxing around here - been going to school in the morning and shopping, playing chess, reading in the afternoon. Tomorrow I'm going out to Jenna's site to travel a bit and get out of the city while I can.

School's got us in seminars through next Saturday, which would mean no breaks from January through December. I just don't understand it. Strangely, I miss teaching already and I want to get back to it. Hell, if I miss teaching NOW, then I definitely can't give up on it when I get back. But where do I want to be? And doing exactly what?

Peace

John

7/21/2004

I feel obligated to put down what I've been doing, when the real important words are those that describe how.

So it's strange, all this.

I've been planning out my last trimester, looking ahead to the business and hecticness that it will create without trying to look behind it. At the same time, there's a good chunk of me that's starting to really look at my trip home as an imminent reality. It's as if time is on two different paces, one for the known quantities and one for the unknown.

It all comes down to one thing - new shoes. My current shoes have holes in the bottoms and are essentially irreparable. If I get new shoes (and slacks, too), I will be quite comfortable on my feet for an average of 8 hours a day. And if I'm comfortable for 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, I'll thoroughly enjoy the work I put in and feel some closure so that the trip home will feel less like a random event and more like the next logical step.

So, what HAVE I been doing? Writing down grades on big sheets of paper in 5 different ways and planning out all my lessons for the last trimester. Two of my stuents will fail (or, have failed) because of absences, which may or may not cause controversy. I gave grades of 100% to several students, which has already caused quite a stir, some good and some bad reactions. I have been playing lots of chess with Dinho, Nanosh and Lisa (Nanosh's girlfriend who has come to visit from Tonga). Most importantly, I've had time to relax to some extent. It'd be nice to have a couple days next week as well, but I'm not counting on it.

So, yes, Nanosh is back and getting into the swing of things, but it's difficult. I don't know who it's harder for - him, his family, or the people around him. Only the test of time will tell.

Peace

John