Katherine wanted to get our primary
school 5th and 6th graders to write, so she
scavenged some of last year's unused test booklets from the wealthier
primary school, distributed them, and has been asking the students to
write about themselves, their families, what they like about school,
the airport opening, a story, anything. This burdens us in several
ways, because we end up carrying 90 or 120 journals 1 or 3 kilometers
back from the schools (which is hard when we also need to stop by the
local bar to buy another 2 liter bottle of the cheap raw red South
African wine – can't risk an accident with the kids' journals, and
they sell the red wine here chilled, so we mustn't let it sweat on
the journals) and then reading, correcting, writing encouraging
remarks, affixing appropriate stickers (e.g., Wow! Great Job! -
thanks sister Martha!), and then carrying the journals back to
school. But we've got to know some of the kids better through this
process, and read some moving entries. For instance, the quiet,
chubby little 11 year-old girl who told us she was raped by a 14
year-old when she was 3; it seems her family dealt with it as well as
they could (her brothers beat up the 14 year-old), and hercurrent
concern was that she thought her classmates knew and would mock her.
We assured her they would not learn from us. Although sometimes, on
some of the topics we teach, my eyes wander her direction.
Here are some journal entries,
selected only from ones we have home tonight from the poorer primary
school's 6th grade, where the tiny and eager 9 and 10 year
olds, many from the nearby refugee camp, sit with the 19 year olds
who have weak English, are thoroughly bored in their 3rd
or 5th year in 5th grade, and disrupt the class
from the back corners of the room, barricaded behind piles of busted
desks and chairs and rows of 4 little kids jammed into a desk built
for 2.
The spelling and punctuation here are
as found in their journals. This is the poorer school, so they are
much less fluent. Generally the penmanship is pretty good.
[S is a tall, pretty 17 year old
girl who is one of the few girls to display a little personality in
the classroom. Yesterday she actually volunteered to be a co-captain
of her 6th grade section in our competition
to give the right answers to questions we found in a Swazi Youth
Council booklet covering the unit we've just finished on sexual and
reproductive health – basically genital anatomy and what those
parts do. (e.g., True or false: “If a girl or woman pees or jumps
up and down immediately after sexual intercourse, she won't get
pregnant.” Seems a lot of people here believe that; its the kind
of line middle-aged sugar-daddies (typically HIV+, I'd guess) may use
to get girls to have unprotected sex for maybe the cost of a school
uniform – US $14 or so, I think.)]
About my family
My father's name is Enoc. My mother says my father was a
good person and he loved my mother so much when my mother was pregnet
to me. They were very happy. . . . He died on exident of a bus.
[Vehicular accidents are a greater cause of death and injury than
any other in Africa, including HIV or TB, according to a recent NYT
headline we caught; simple, low-cost highway improvements would
greatly diminish that.] When I was 8 months. I have been raised
by my mother and I have a child now is 1 year old am so so proud
about my little one.
About my body.
I love my body very much because my body important to me I think God
forgivening me a beautiful baby. ["My body" was not an assigned topic, but we've been talking a lot about bodies, and body parts. Wonder what they think of us, that we talk so much about sex?]
[M is an 11 year old boy who
describes himself as “bright in my comprexion.”]
I like to see you in class teaching us
about life skills and about HIV and AIDS. You as our helper you are
responsible to us. You help us from the different questions about
life skills and HIV and AIDS. I like you very much. Those who
listen you in class when you are teaching get information from you.
It is good what you do in class. I like your teaching very much and
I thank for what you do in class.
[MG
is a girl, 13, who says she is “dark in compiation.”]
My
family. I stay with my
grandmother, three aunts and two cousins. I have no parents, my
parents died. My mom died in 2003 when I was two years. My dad died
when I was ten years and I was doing grade 4 in 2011. I thought my
life was over but life being nice to me. I was the only child to my
mom and dad. My dad died because of tuberculosis.
* *
*
[Another
entry, in response to a request to “Tell us a story.”] My
family and I. I always
remember my parents. When I remember them I cry because I'm not feel
comfortable. Sometimes I do not sleep because I keep crying when I
rember my mom and dad. It is so hard for me to live withought my
parents, but my grandmother tell me that I am a strong young girl. I
suport to learn so that when I grow up I work very nice. When my
grandmother tells me that words or tells me storys I feel happy.
[We
don't know much about S M. We will try to follow up on the comment
in the 2nd
paragraph. There are suggestions of possible abuse of the writer or
perhaps an acquaintance in journal entries of several other students
from other grades and the other primary school; we think sometimes
school principals try to intervene to protect students. We fear a
call to the police might lead to the child being left in a bad
situation, now labeled a snitch and far worse off.]
My
Family. I stay with two
sisters, two brothers. . . . We have no parant I feel bad about this
I am not happy when I do not see my parant. I was so angry when my
parant died and my sisters were very angry and my brothers were very
angry about what happened to us.
[Another
entry, responding to “What do you like about school?”]
I like at school I am serous about school . . . . I remember my
parant my mother were take care of us. But know there is no life to
us I do not know what can we do they beat me very hard and they call
me bad names I am not happy even know I don't know what can I do. I
like at school and like all subject they teach us in English.
[We
don't know much about H]
What
I like about School. My soul
is so painful because the are some big boys in the back that spoil
our live. They just think that we do not whant to learn like them.
If they can
take them out of the class we can learn more from you and we can know
everything that is you teach use we wish to be like you myself wish
to be infront of some children teaching them something but the boy
want to us to fail but we wont. God wil be with us at the end of the
term we will pass [can't read]. God bless you thank you for what you
teach us.
[E
T is a tiny, extraordinarily intense 12 year old girl from the
refugee camp with 4 or 5 white scars on her face. Her family is from
Burundi. The refugee kids have typically only started to learn
English 3 to 5 years ago, when their parents fled from their homes,
but their English is often better than the Swazis who have studied it
since preschool. Remember in the late 80s and early 90s when all the
valedictorians at the service academies seemed to be named Nguyen,
children of Vietnamese boat people, whose parents - doctors,
teachers, nurses, government officials in their home country - worked
in the U.S. at landscaping, restaurants, cleaning offices? Same with
the 2nd
and 3rd
generation Cuban children in the 70s and 80s in south Florida? Many
of the refugee children are like that – smart, driven, boldly
facing an uncertain future (they are not eligible for college
scholarships here, as far as we've been able to discover, and we have
met none who have papers showing any citizenship status for any
country, which would be necessary for some jobs and all travel; they
say these are denied them by the Swazis to control them; the Camp
Management says all they have to do is ask. ) – the hope of their
families. Being a refugee is a powerful selection device for wits,
perseverance, energy, and hope for the future despite dismaying
currently available choices.]
My
life skill and the things that made me to love it.
I love my life skill because it is very important to but, to my
school mates they do'nt care about it. The most thing I like about
my life skill is my teachers who are Nomphumelelo and Sipho [our
Swazi names]. You are
good teachers I love you. You are like my anything to me. My
schoolmate disobey you and you teach well. I ask myself why they
heat you?
*
* *
In
grade 6B the boys beat the younger one in class, eat, play, make
noise, bring cell phones and play games, disobeying teachers,
fighting and insulting you when you are through with your period . .
. . [They did what?!]
[Another
issue with the journals is copying. Some journals have entries that
are identical. Now, having sufficient interest for small groups to
discuss and borrow ideas (maybe like a law school study group?) would
generate energy and attention. But just copying a friend's work
isn't helpful. Then, some of the work is clearly simply copied from
another source; we showed a poem to one of the teachers who handed us
a literature book in which we found the poem, but when I first read
the poem in the classroom and was struck at the eloquence, unexpected
from this offensive lineman-sized generally cooperative but quite
tongue-tied 17 year old, I'd asked him several times if it was his
work and several ways (trying to get past the language barrier), and
he'd repeatedly assured me it was his. So we need to try to deal
with that issue.
Both our
children ran into this issue of unattributed copying, both when
teaching college level kids, from foreign countries. Maybe there are
cultural norms. We are having trouble getting this issue across.
H
N is a girl who lives with her mother, sister, brother and
grandmother. Her father is dead. The entries preceding this one
were riddled with grammatical, spelling, and vocabulary errors.
Katherine, who has a highly sensitized BS-detector, is sure this is
copied. I guess I think so too, but even if it is, what does it say
about her that this child chose to copy this! We will try to reach
out to her next week when we are at this school; not sure what to say
to her.]
No
future for me. Why are
you doing this to me? Why are you spoiling my life? Why are you
crushing me? Why do you pretend you love me you are destroying my
chance of learning. You do not want me to enjoy my childhood. You
do not want me to have bright future. All my dreams are shattered.
You brought me to this world for this. You call me son or daughter
for this. Why are so cruel? You had a wonderful childhood No-one
hurt you in your youth But why me - Why
Another
concept we need to try to capture is that, in our class, mistakes are
good! When an entry comes back covered with red corrections, that
means they are stretching. But here, students are rebuked and
sometimes beaten, for wrong answers. Which is why hands don't go up
to respond to a question, and heads go down and voices become so
quiet when we call on someone, and then get quieter
and quieter as we come
closer to try to hear them, with our failing hearing. They are
getting better at bravely responding and speaking up in our classes,
especially at the more prosperous school.
This has
been a really wordy blog posting. No worries – there will not be a
test. And you won't be beaten. Not by us, anyway.
By and large I've read all of your updates of your time and tours abroad with interest, and your development as educators in that context.
ReplyDeleteThat is really wonderful that you're having your students write in journals, that is probably one of the most powerful exercises they can do!
Now a little flaying:
With this missive, I have to ask however: what is the purpose of revealing the thoughts in journals entrusted to you by your students, who cannot possibly have given informed consent for their writings to be used in this way? Even "anonymously"? From the descriptions you provide, the entries could easily be traced back to the individuals by anyone familiar with your community. So the first issue here is consent, and a second is discretion and fiduciary duty. Any beneficiary of a fiduciary cannot by definition give informed consent because of the dependency on the provider for needed services.
I wonder, if your children had written about problems at home in their journals at school, if they or you would have wanted their teachers to share these private thoughts or situations without permission as a sort of case study, semi-publicly, in the interest of demonstrating the evils of or creating awareness about 'first world problems,' perhaps in lieu of finding a meaningful way to help? I have to wonder if that is really necessary - and if it could even put these students in danger. So the third issue I perceive here is exploiting these situations for your own needs in ways that don't clearly serve or express theirs, and could actually imperil them. Maybe ideas about privacy are different there and I'd love to hear about it if so.
No doubt you are being confronted by a number of difficult situations and realities abroad which can be hard to communicate about and which you need and deserve support throughout, and of course you want to share your experiences and the ups and downs... but this feels in some ways too similar to scenes most western audiences are familiar with: people of other cultures exported to and trotted out in front of European courts to entertain the populace, or discussions about what's best for the 3rd world which actually don't involve any voices FROM the 3rd world or only show these voices only as victims rather than as decision-makers who need to have an active, decisive role in the problem solving process.
You are entrusted with a lot of power in that work to change lives forever for the better. Your task is a hard one and that must be acknowledged, and it must also be hard to hold all of the pain and, as you described them, burdensome ideas from those journals. And certainly there are many problems, in the first, second and third world countries which deserve exposure, examination, and solving, I think there's a way to do that without further exposing and imperiling those most affected by those problems. I don't think you'd be there if you weren't up to the job.
We did a little better job preserving anonymity than you suggest. You don't indicate you made any effort to track down these students. It would have been very difficult.
ReplyDeleteNowhere in our blog does it reveal what part of the country we are located in. Nor are the names of the schools mentioned. There are 220 high schools in Swaziland, and more than that number of primary schools.
The school from which these entries were taken does not have class lists of students. I know. I've tried to get them.
My sense from the other volunteers is that there are stories such as those in my blog posting in many, many schools in this country, and probably in other countries as well. One would not need to go to great effort to find such children, I fear. We didn't.
Thanks for your interest in our blog, and for your thoughtful comments. From some comments from others, numerous and generous donations to Books for Africa, and general guidance from the Peace Corps, we think others are finding some interest in some of our entries. We hope so. One of the 3 statutorily-imposed goals of the Peace Corps is bringing understanding of our sites to the U.S.