Model students

Thursday, 12 August 2010

This was the last day of Peace Corps training that involved any work on my part. The culmination of our three months as trainees was a 15- to 20-minute cultural presentation delivered, in French, in front small groups of our peers and trainers. Mine was about freshwater resources in Cameroon. (They’re dwindling as the region becomes drier and everyone continues to bathe, launder clothes, and relieve themselves in the same rivers and streams from which they get their drinking water.)

Such a weight lifted off me after I finished my presentation. I had been so busy student-teaching in Peace Corps Model School that I didn’t really start research until the day before we were scheduled to present. I was so elated knowing that my training work was finished that I spent the rest of the afternoon dancing through the PC classrooms and reading to my 42 American fellows the three (or more) good qualities I had written down about them at the beginning of “stage” (which, in French, approximates the English “internship”).

Here are two of my favorites, about two of my favorite PCVs: “[E.] – Inclusive, individual, delights in his girlfriend.” I love this guy, in part, because of how much he loves his girlfriend back in the States. He constantly sings her praises and always has a smile on his face and a twinkle of adoration in his eye when he talks about her. That’s how a person ought to feel about his or her significant other.

The other: “[R.] – Compassionate / understanding of children, childlike, open, a riot!, finds it hard to contain himself.” I just love this boy’s spiritedness. Sometimes he has to stop talking in the middle of a sentence because he just can’t hold back his enthusiasm, amusement, excitement, or laughter for a second longer. I sat in on one of the IT classes he taught a class of 13- to 15-year-olds. He was delightful and so amazing with the kids! He had a great command of French, too.

I was happy this day, too, to be finished with Model School. I’m so grateful for that trial-by-fire training, but it was intense. My happiest days were when I could teach a small life lesson or two in a mix of “special” (read “slow, deliberate, and British-ized”) English and “cave-woman” French (as my friend J. calls it). My favorite hour: when I came in one morning to find this message on the blackboard – “[Mme.] do not come at classroom you do not teaching good we don’t understan your lessons”.

I sucked in my breath knowing I had two choices: I could cry because the kids thought that I was a bad teacher, or I could turn this slight into a teachable moment. A student who arrived before most of the rest volunteered to erase the board for me. No, I said, I wanted to leave it as it was. As the others filed in, they were especially quiet – save for a few muffled giggles – as it dawned on them that the message I was standing next to was not from my own hand but was an insult scratched out by one of their classmates. In a culture of corporal punishment and shouting out others’ foibles, I think the kids were mulling which of these two methods I’d choose to deal with this wrong.

First, I made sure everyone had read and understood the broken English. I think I even had one kid stand and read the insult aloud. Next, as my adolescent students stared wide-eyed, I asked them if the English on the board was correct. No, Madame, they insisted somberly. We spent the following 15 minutes tweaking the grammar and punctuation until we arrived at something like, “[Mme.], do not come to class anymore. You do not teach well. We don’t understand your lessons.”

When we finished, I probed my class for their opinions. Do I speak too quickly? Are my explanations unclear? What can I do to help you understand better? I didn’t get a lot of response – except from the exceptional students, who said there was no problem at all with my teaching. Then I asked them whether they thought education was important. Of course they answered in the affirmative, despite my admonition not to lie and tell me what I wanted to hear. If education is important, then, who is responsible for it – teacher or students? Oh, students, students, they all said, thinking I would believe their potentially poor performance was their own fault alone.

OK, I countered, but I believe both parties are responsible for learning. Students must respect the teacher, one another, and themselves by coming to class prepared, listening, studying, and doing their work. But teachers must evaluate themselves, query the class about where they need help, and be observant about who needs extra attention and in what areas. If I was failing them, they needed to be honest and let me know. We are here to learn, I said; it’s OK for all of us to make mistakes, as long as we work to correct them when we realize them.

We had a good class the rest of that morning. The students listened and, I think, understood more than usual. I got a kick out of recounting the story later on in our weekly PC student-teacher staff meeting, and that day remains one of the highlights of my time, thus far, teaching in Cameroon.