I have now been in Malawi for a year!!!! Okay, shy two weeks. Either way, the honeymoon period is over. Shortly after arriving I sent gushing messages home about what a paradise Malawi is.
As far as flora and fauna and the natural geography, I stand by that, but as in any human society there are frictions and failings. There have been in fact, so many frustrations for me at the school that I was very near to calling it quits and coming home. I went as far as applying for jobs and very nearly accepted two of them (it was probably divine providence that two of them looked equally tempting, because God in his wisdom knew that a phlegmatic person like me would be frozen into staying put by the prospect of having to choose between two very good things). Well, the decision making wasn't that simple, but I I have in short decided to stay.
Here are some of the frustrations that I have faced:
Philosophy of Education
Education here is totally centered upon the national exams. Actual understanding and critical thinking abilities are not of so much importance. I think that school administrators and teachers here would totally deny that understanding and critical thinking are not of importance, but the structure of the system makes that the practical reality. Coming from a background of classical education where the focus is on the education of the human person -- their body, mind, and soul -- this is jarring. The pedagogy here is truly drill and kill: drill the subject matter til it is memorized and the joy in the subject is totally dead.
There also is a lack of support for the girls. They live in large dorms with very little adult oversight. There is always an adult on duty, but I think (I am not certain) there is typically only one matron or sister on duty with the girls. One adult cannot properly oversee 100s of girls or provide the love and guidance that teenagers need. There are frequent behavior issues which are solved by having the problem girl meet with the disciple committee of teachers and typically being assigned some sort of punishment (“slashing”/cutting grass with a machete thing, digging up stumps, watering trees, etc). Particularly egregious offenders are either suspended for a week or two (typically teachers find out after the fact, so there is no way to send work home with them and they have no access to books when they are home, so when they come back, they are very behind and really have to catch up on their own, which you can imagine impacts the all important exam results) or expelled all together. There is not any sort of counseling or follow up. There is no mother figure who is really present for the girls to know them and guide them. Problem girls are simply not invited to return for the next year.
Poor Communication
There is no official communication channel at the school. Sometimes memos go out via Whats App. Sometimes by word of mouth. Several times, a person has come to me and said, "the meeting has started," and I am at a loss as to what meeting they are talking about, because I had not heard a thing about it. Just this Monday, M.B. Told me, “O, you weren't there when the deputy announced that there is an emergency meeting tomorrow afternoon.” I asked the time. The time had not been set. What was the emergency? She did not know; the deputy had not said. I saw the deputy that afternoon and inquired the time and agenda. His response, “I just said it was an emergency meeting, and we haven't set the time.” The emergency turned out to be that the principal will not be here at the end of term, and so we had to move forward the typical end of term staff meeting. This meeting requires reports from different departments who were left to scramble to formulate their reports in the few hours before the meeting once the agenda was released via a circulating piece of paper. This meeting also solicits the advice of teachers on which students should not be invited back next year based on behavior and academic performance, bear in mind that final exams are taking place now and have not been graded (while I think exams are only a part of what ought to determine a students grade and academic achievement, the system here is not set up that way, so since many of the girls do rally and study hard the week before finals to pull together a passing grade of 50% it seems only fair to give them the benefit of the system).
Boredom
I have done a lot of reading this year! I have been trying to read the majority of novels in the school library so that I can make good recommendations for the girls. However, one can only read for so many hours a day. I also go for long walks in my time off, but again, I at least, loose a sense of purpose. Holidays, weekends, and evenings thus often turn into painful pointless hours to try and fill til I can sleep away a large chunk of them. To remedy this, I am going to be taking some online classes next year as well as teaching Latin online for Schole Academy – the later to fund the former.
My Own Shortcomings
This year has also made my own shortcomings very plain. Over and over again, I have learned that I do not have patience. It is not so much, losing patience with girls who goof off in class as with those who do not understand, and it is precisely these girls who deserve patience. The education system here is so broken. Many girls make it to secondary school with virtually no knowledge of English or very very poor English, yet the entire education is in English. This fact alone, seems a problem to me. Having the school system in English has been defended to me by numerous Malawians, because they say, "English is the international language, so unless they learn English well, they won't be able to participate on the world scene." My response is that even with the system in English, students are not learning English, so at least teach them in their native language so that they can understand the rest of the material which could help them in living a better life and being able to straighten up some of the problems within this country. Either that or actually teach them English. As an example, there is a student in form three with whom I have been working through a vintage 2nd grade English book. For the girl in question, many of the very simple sentence completion exercises are beyond her. The problem is compounded, because frequently teachers themselves have limited English. There is a teacher here with whom I can only have very simple conversations -- really just an exchange of pleasantries or a question about his subject matter to which I receive a text book answer. I have met teachers from private primary school whose English was also very low, which explains the poor level of English that the girls enter secondary school with. Anyway, back to my own short comings...
I've also realized how little I know about teaching. I've taught before, but only received teacher training at inservices, which is precious little. Teaching is an art, and I am sadly missing never having had a master artist to train me. I am grateful for the online tutorials that I've started watching on ClassicalU. The tutorials by Jerilyn Olson of the Great Hearts Academies were so simple and yet I did not know half of what she presented.
So, what am I looking forward to next year?
Well, firstly, a second chance to work with these girls here. To try and foster a love of learning. To interact with them in patience and love. To think of creative ways to present the material in an engaging and understandable way.Secondly, I am excited for the literature classes. Form 2 and Form 4 do dramas. For form 2, there is no required text, so I hope to read and perform with them Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. The form 4s are required to read Macbeth. We will spend two terms on it, and I hope that we will be able to put on a production at the end of term 2. (A huge thank you to Kathy Kenny and Archbishop Murphey Highschool for funding the purchase of these books! There were only 10 copies of Macbeth between 60 girls previously!)