School

Last we left off; I was anxiously waiting for the school year to start.

As I mentioned previously the Guinean education system is un peu different. The debut of the school year is announced over the radio about a month or so before the date. I’m not certain how the date is determined, but this year’s school year was scheduled to start on October 15th. However, in Guinea, even though there is a scheduled date for school it’s more like an approximation.

After being at site for a little over 2 weeks I was growing increasingly restless with the anticipation of the school year, primarily because I had not talked to anyone from my school since being at site and school was starting in less than a week. I still had no clue what grade level I was going to be teaching or what my schedule was going to be, so was therefore unable to do any useful preparation. Finally two days before the scheduled start of school my principal randomly knocked on my door to tell me that we had a meeting tout de suite. So I quickly grabbed my pen and paper and we walked the five minutes to the school, where I was introduced to the Directeur des Etudes (the U.S equivalent of a vice principal) and two of the parents from the “parent organization.” After the five minute introduction they carried on the meeting in Maninka for the next hour. You all are aware of my level of Maninka, so you can determine what my role became in this meeting. The clueless girl, sitting there, twiddling her thumbs.

Anyway, afterward we continued with the L’emploi de Temps. It was decided that I would teach 8th and 9th grade Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I was pleased with the outcome of my schedule and looking forward to teaching, but for whatever reason, there was still this cloud of uncertainty among the school staff whether school was really going to start in the next 2 days, or maybe the 20th, or maybe the 1st of November. I figured it would be in my best interest to show up just in case.

So that Wednesday morning I woke up nice and early, bathed, put on my best Guinean attire, reviewed my lesson plans once more and then left the house around 7:30am. I wanted to be early for my new students. I got to the school within 5 minutes and walked into an empty school yard. There was a random unoccupied desk sitting in the courtyard just outside the “teachers lounge.” After about 15 minutes or about 10 to eight (school starts at eight) I was still there tout seul. Time is not of the essence here so I decided to wait a little longer since Guineans are usually late….So another 45 minutes passed and I was still there twiddling my thumbs. So at this point I made up my mind that there was no school on October 15th. So I left and walked back to my hut, changed my clothes and went on about my business for the day. Friday or so, some random person in my village tells me that school is actually starting Monday October 20th. Much to my surprise he was right.


Teaching

School has been an interesting experience thus far. Some days are better than others but overall good. I have about 70 students that show up for each of my classes. As you can imagine, it can be somewhat tiresome trying to manage 70 eighth graders that kind of understand you. Not only because you don’t speak French that well but because their French is worse than yours. I bring a bottle of water with me everyday to sip when my throat gets raw. My students also enjoy laughing and mocking my French accent. (You know all this laughter that seems to hover over me wherever I go has led me into serious consideration of quitting everything and pursuing a career as a comedian since people get such a kick out of me :-) )

Anyway, apart from the occasional laughter, my kids are awesome and teaching is enjoyable. I find my life is consumed with my students. If I’m not teaching, I’m lesson planning or tutoring, or trying to come up with a way to motivate them or a creative way to present the material so that they can understand the concepts. It can be challenging but so rewarding on both ends, when they finally get it.

Like practice school in Forecariah, many of the students in my village lack sound math fundamentals. In addition to that I have some students that just don’t believe they could possibly comprehend, and therefore put zero effort in, some students have to work after school so don’t have time, and others who would just rather play football than study.

To counteract some of these difficulties I have to take class extremely slowly, explain things/concepts beacoup de fois and give a million examples. For the students that don’t believe try and find different ways to encourage them. It’s a lot sometimes but at the end of the day they understand.

Each day after school I do revision sessions for those students that need extra help. It’s kind of like office hours. I have a few regular students that come but for the majority it’s difficult to get the extra help because they have to work the fields after school. In a country like Guinea, working the fields takes precedent over school work. It’s a adverse situation to be in and difficult as a teacher, because I can’t tell a student not to go work the fields and instead study if that’s one of the only ways that his/her family can eat.

Aside from having to work, the education system here in Guinea just doesn’t hold as much value as it would in the United States or Europe. Although a student may go through with high school and university there is little guarantee that he/she will find a job in Guinea that would pay enough money that they could support their family. And it’s extremely hard to leave the country when you don’t have the means.

For example a common job found among people with a degree is teaching. From what I understand, the average teacher’s salary is about 200,000GF. Sounds like a lot right? In actuality it’s roughly $40 a month, which if you calculate is a little over a dollar a day. In Guinea a sac of rice (which is what everyone eats) costs 200,000GF. It’s not enough.

Anyway, because teachers don’t get paid enough, naturally a lot of striking occurs and in some instances they just don’t show up to work. In the case of my village, I work at a college that has 7th-10th grade, of maybe 400 students total (on paper.) There are some days when I go to school and I am the only teacher that comes the whole day. If I’m teaching the 8th graders, the 7th, 9th, 10th graders are just hanging out in hopes that maybe the next teacher for the 10:00am class shows up. If he doesn’t the principal sends the kids home, which means they didn’t have class that day. This happens on more than one occasion a week. I just started teaching 10th grade last week because the math teacher has not shown up yet. It’s been over a month since school started. This year the 10th graders take a test called the BREVET which determines whether they will continue onto 11th grade.

Although there are so many factors that contribute to the situation, I understand how and why things are operating the way that they are. I don’t necessarily agree with them, but unfortunately the students are the one’s affected by all of this. The fortunate thing about all of this, unlike practice school I have my students for 2 whole years, which is just enough time for them to be molded into little mathématiciens. J But more importantly encourage them to understand the value of education despite the situation. You never know what opportunities might come available so you want to be prepared.

For those of you teachers or non teachers that might have any ideas about teaching techniques or anything creative that might assist in the education of the students please feel free to leave a message on the blog or send me an email, larc_pickett@yahoo.com. For those that have already given them, thank you, they are greatly appreciated.