The Peace Corps Training Chronicles: Part 2

So, it's the end of week two of homestay, and things have definitely changed up a bit.  As far as training is concerned, the focus has shifted somewhat from learning Kiswahili to learning how to teach effectively: for the last week, we've been sitting in on real classes as well as "microteaching" (i.e. holding mock classes for our respective fields in front of our fellow trainees).  These sessions are a bit of an eye-opener... I have a lot to learn before I can become an effective teacher here in Tanzania, and I'm definitely terrified that they're going to start putting me in classrooms with real kids on Monday.

And yet, over the past couple of weeks, I've really begun to see why we're here.  The Tanzanian education system is drastically different than the American one, and, while it's not bad by African standards, it could really use some work.  The core of the problem is that there are simply not enough teachers.  There are plenty of schools and willing students, but there is pretty much no one to teach them.  The typical Tanzanian classroom has something like 60 students at the "O"-level, and about 100 at the "A"-level, and it can be pretty hard to control dozens of teenagers in a tiny classroom, much less ensure that they all pass their examinations at the end of the year.  This is, of course, assuming that the teachers show up: most teachers in Tanzania are transient by nature, working at schools that need them the most and never staying in one place for an extended period of time.  As a result, it's common for teachers to just up and leave in the middle the semester, leaving their students---and the prospect of passing their examinations---to the fates.  The secondary school next to mine, for example, currently has about 400 kids and only one teacher.  And he's the headmaster.  And he shows up late every day.  So, at least for the past couple of weeks, the school has essentially been a bunch of students in full uniform just milling around all day.

This is all exacerbated by a fairly cumbersome education system overall.  Most students are solely concerned with passing the national examinations held at the end of each term: failing these examinations essentially means that you drop out of school, while passing them means that you progress to the next level.  Most students accomplish this via rote memorization of the material... critical thinking pretty much doesn't exist in the Tanzanian school system, and most students answer questions correctly on the national examinations simply because they remember the exact same problem somewhere in their studies.  It doesn't help that, at the secondary school level, all classes are supposed to be taught in English, and all standardized testing is in English as well (for most of these students, English is their third language after local dialect and Kiswahili).  Therefore, your typical Tanzanian student has to not only learn whichever subject he or she is taking, but also English, all the while trying to pass the national exams so that they can stay in school.

In any case, how I'm doing: actually, not too much has changed in the past week.  Not having electricity or running water isn't too bad (my family actually has a generator that powers the house every now and again), and I'm slowly becoming a better cook (I participated in my first chicken slaughtering today).  I'm pretty sure one of these days I'm going to go out one night and strangle the roosters in my compound, which insist on crowing at about 3:30 in the morning every day.

I will say one thing, though: I'm sick of the food.  This has literally been my diet for the past three weeks, WITHOUT EXCEPTION:

Starch (choose two): Rice, ugali, potatoes, noodles.
Meat (choose one): Stewed beef, stewed chicken, sardines.
Vegetable (choose one): Spinach, cabbage, "chinesi" (a slightly different kind of cabbage).
Fruit (choose one): Bananas, oranges.
Spices (choose one): Salt, garlic.
Drink (choose one): Water, tea, soda (maybe).

Seriously, make any combination of the above, and that's been my breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the past 24 days.  It's not bad by any means, but it gets old, fast.  I hear we get a bit more freedom when we move out to site, but for now, I miss cheese.  Bad.  Oh well, I guess I'll get used to it in time.

Okay, that's about it for now.  Later!