Many kids here never learn HOW to learn. I don't know whether it's a product of the system, the culture or my inexperience in the field of education, but it's almost impossible to teach to some kids.
I'm finding that out because I'm trying a new way of calling on kids. I'm tired of the same ones always answering my questions, so I used Zach's idea and made numbered cards - one number for every student. Because there are so many students in Mozambican schools, within every classroom, every student has a number. So I simply made 53 cards and shuffled them randomly.
I didn't even know I had some of these kids as students. It's like they started popping up out of nowhere.
I taught today about the morphology of roots. There's a "zone" where the principal root and secondary roots join together, called (in a direct translation because I don't know the English), "ramification zone". After I drew a diagram of a root with all the parts labeled, I held up a plant and announced I was going to have students identify the parts on an ACTUAL PLANT!
Well, many of them know the basics either from previous years, or just because this is an agricultural society, but the ones who don't, REALLY don't know it.
I called on one girl (randomly) who hesitated to get up and was very timid in responding to me, not unusual at all. I asked her to identify the ramification zone. She pointed to the leaves of the plant.
So I took a couple of steps back. When doing this lesson, this happens all the time - simplify, then work back to the question.
I explained that therre was a soil level, and that the roots were beneath this level. I asked her to demonstrate and she did. I then asked her where the principal root was.
And I know this is incredibly intimidating for her. A strange white teacher and 50 of her friends staring at her to answer a question. So I'm constantly shushing others and trying to be as nice as possible without losing my "professor" character.
She found the principal root, so then I asked her which were the secondary roots. She found these too. So I told her to identify the ramification zone, which is where the roots join. She was clueless. I asked if she understood, and got a firm "NO". Others did, and started trying to help her. It was nice to see, but in the long run, didn't help. Sure, she'd get this right, but if she doesn't know HOW to answer the question, then all she'll know are answers.
So I tried to ask it another way, to no avail. It's not that she didn't understand my language, it's that she didn't see how my language translated to the thing I was holding. Suddenly, putting two concepts together was foreign and scary.
And this happens all of the time. Words are words to these kids. They're quite existential. Western culture finds so much power in the word - there's so much emphasis on writing and speaking clearly as a means of expressing yourself.
Here, you move through space - a being, moving through air. You express yourself equally in every direction and dimension. People - people who CAN speak and hear - sometimes communicate entirely by gestures. Conversations often occur after you've passed each other. If I throw someone out of class, everyone knows exactly why, even if I've said nothing.
So the mouth is just that - a mouth. It makes noise and we can hear that noise and realize that therre are words that we are hearing and we can choose to have those mean something more.
This is the challenge.
This is a society that embraces forms of Christianity on a superficial level without sacrificing their deeply-rooted beliefs in "moya" or "the spirit". They've been taught that if you don't pray, you'll burn in hell. I know, because they tell ME this. But they don't truly believe it - they don't really have a good idea of what hell is like, other than hotter than Mozambique (which is pretty scary). It's just words.
And I'm a teacher using these words. And if I eventually teach anything in Changana, I'm just using different words. Maybe the words will make more sense to them, but it's the same thing. So, how do I teach in this culture? I use visual aids, real-life examples, students to personify examples, etc. But all of these still get lost in the void that is the word. They never make their way to the heart.
Maybe kids are taught here that there is no connectionn between education and quality of life. Or maybe the only education they need is the one they get anyway, and our imposition of the Western ideal of "education" is fruitless.
But I'm too harsh. There are students who get it, who know my way of "learning" and are practically bored in class. In the middle, are many students who get it about 50% of the time, and just memorize the rest of the time.
I've hesitated to dumb down my lessons for that reason. I could give ONLY what I would ever test on, but then the memorizers win. There's less to memorize, so the kids who are seeking to understand, don't have the upper hand. So I give long-winded definitions for things, but explain them simply and make sure the kids who are listening understand how the definition can mean the simple explanation.
And I try to keep it light, if the kids are being good. Someone yawns, "Am I boring you?" is my response. Someone's speaking while I am, and I stop mid-sentence and stare at them until they stop. If it happens twice, they get kicked out. And then I continue my sentence exactly where I was, which ends up being pretty funny. Kids heckle me as they're walking by, so I respond in mid-sentence as well. While talking, I take away notebooks for other subjects, random paraphernalia, and sometimes students. And the best is to pretend like I don't see someone who is talking, then call on them in the next moment. When they use the excuse, "I didn't understand", I call them on it and say they'd understand better if they didn't talk while I was talking.
And the kids who are paying attention get it. They appreciate that I see what's going on and I'm not just giving a lesson, but trying to get them to understand. And even if they don't understand, they're trying to. I love the kids who try hard and only get it half the time. They're interested in why they're wrong and why they're right. I wish there were some way to give these kids better grades. I ought to think about that one...
And speaking of lightness in the classroom, my big drawing of a root that the kids copied down, ended up a subliminal image. Only to me, of course. I was looking at one student's drawing upside-down, and realized I was looking at a menorah. Hehe..
So in case you linguistics nuts are interested, here's a little something about Changana, and most likely all Bantu family languages. Bantus have classes of nouns, just like Romance languages have genders. Except Bantus hve over a dozen different "genders". Changana has about 20. What this means is pretty complicated.
There is a class for the first person singular, first person plural, second person singular, and second person plural, and the third person is in the general class of "people". What this means is that, depending on the class of the subject, adjectives have a different prefix, possessives are different, demonstrative pronouns are different, etc. And if you're talking about a doctor, you use the "people" class, but if you're talking about the hospital, you use the "buildings" class.
And best of all, verbs are just one of these classes. Coming from verb-based languages, this is a very foreign concept. So essentially, the entire language is captured in this idea of classifying things in these very distinct compartments. So before you can know how to say "That tree is pretty", you need to know how to conceptualize a tree in relation to everything else. And then, the words "that" and "pretty" get changed, based upon the class of "tree".
This exists on a much more universal level, too. There are roots in Changana, such as "-tirh" which is the general idea of "work". Depending on the class, there are different prefixes and suffixes. For the person class, you can say "mutirhi" - a worker. For the verb class, you can say "kutirha", to work. You can extend that to be work (as in a job), work (as in something you did), a way of working, at work, a little work, or a lot of work. And all of these are different words! But once you know the scheme, it's just a matter of knowing the roots and the exceptions. It's a completely different way of thinking...
Peace
John
