Ku ishuri: kwigisha no kwiga

Muraho buri wese! This month's topic comes courtesy of one of my other grandmothers: Granny. She asked me to write about teaching. Yes, I do have a job; it's not all fun and games for me in my little village in Rwanda. I came here to teach, and I'll teach you all today (stop slouching Keegan!) about my roles and responsibilities as a teacher in Rwanda, how the school system is structured (both at a broad level and more locally), and what my students and classes a like. So, get ready, there's an exam next week.

First, Peace Corps in Rwanda takes two types of volunteers: education and health. I was nominated and selected for the former, and in that category there are three sub-categories: English, Mathematics, and Science. As most of you know, I teach Math (and some French), but I'm in the minority. When our training group arrived in Rwanda, we had about 50 English teachers, 10 Math teachers, and 10 science teachers. Although the numbers have changed slightly due to early departures, the overwhelming majority of education volunteers teach English. This is important, because Rwanda recently switched (2009) from French as their language of instruction to English. The Rwandan government decided that some American volunteers would be a good way to help ease this process, the Peace Corps agreed, and the Rwandan school system became more international.

The structure of the school system is not all that different from that in Europe or the U.S. Children typically start school around age 6 in the first level of primary school, with the option of starting out before in what is still called the French maternelle, but could be called the Anglo-Saxon kindergarten. After six years of primary school, there is a national exam, and students who succeed move on to secondary school at ordinary level (O level). O level is comprised of three years of study, with every student studying the same compulsory subjects for 38 hours per week, including English, Swahili, Sport, Physics, Entrepreneurship, Geography, and at the end of these three years students sit for another national examination. This time, those who succeed move on to advanced level (A level) to finish their secondary studies. Here, students are placed into (I'm unsure how much choice there is) an academic option comprised primarily of three subjects. For example, a student might be in the languages option (English, French, and Swahili) or maybe MEG (Math, Economics, and Geography) or MCB (Math, Chemistry, and Biology). Students still study other subjects (like English for someone in MCB), but the majority of their time is spent on the subjects in their option. Finally, upon finishing three years at A level they take another national exam, with success leading to the possibility of university studies.

In addition to the recent change in language of instruction, there has also been a change in how much education is guaranteed by the state. It was only in the last five or ten years that it changed from being six years of basic education, to nine years, and now it is being changed again to twelve years of basic education provided to each child. This means that students can go to local public schools, paying only a small basic upkeep and maintenance fee instead of being priced out of an A-level education at one of the much more expensive boarding schools. In fact, my school has nearly completed the construction of three additional classrooms to welcome it's first class of A-level students.

The school year currently runs from early January to late October or early November, but I have heard that it may change soon to a September/October-June schedule, similar to Europe and the U.S., and coinciding with the university schedule as well as that of other East-African nations. Each school year is divided into three terms of about 11 weeks each, with about three weeks of vacation after the first two terms and a long year-end vacation of about two months (which I am currently enjoying).

Getting more specific with schedules and timetables, the school day at my schoo for secondary students runs from 7:15 AM to 2:00 PM, with eight 50-minute classes, one 15-minute break, and no time between classes. The primary school starts at 7:20 AM and finishes at 5:00 PM, with an hour-long lunch break and several recesses throughout the day. And, at a personal level, I taught students 17 hours per week (12 of Math and 5 of French), picking up an additional six hours during the last term teaching teachers English. As a secondary-school teacher, I also get one planning day each week when I don't teach. And, while I often did use it for planning, it was also the big market day for one of the nearby towns, so I had the option of going there when my work was done.

For materials, each classroom is equipped with three columns of desks that seat 2-3 students and two blackboards (one in front and one in back). Chalk (white and color), planning notebooks, and pens (blue and red) are provided by the school, and there is a set of books for every subject, although students must share them since there aren't quite enough copies for each student. A resourceful, motivated teacher can make supplementary materials out of any number of things. I've made dice, geometrical figures, a paper airplane, and some other things, but I've also seen teachers use rice sacks for posters or make really basic science experiments (we have a large trunk given to the school by the government containing beakers, scales, lenses, etc.). By and large, I would say that the materials are sufficient, but obviously it's not to current Western standards of huge libraries of books, computers for every students, and Internet access. We have enough to get the job done.

So, my job is to teach Math to students and English to teachers, but what about these students and teachers? Well, the age range of the students is quite large. Despite all starting school at roughly the same age, by the time they arrive in secondary school, they are anywhere from 12 to about 20 years old. I believe that this is due to students leaving school for a year or two because they can't afford even the small fees that they pay in the public school and then returning or because they had to take the national exam multiple times before passing (although this is less likely with the newly-guaranteed nine-years of basic education; they are just not sent to a high-performing school). One final possibility is that with this new nine-year (and now twelve) guarantee, students who couldn't afford to continue studying before are returning after having been out of school for several years after finishing primary.

This age range, along with the recent switch to English as the medium of instruction has meant that my year has been filled with a fair amount of frustrations in the classroom. The English level of my students is low, and when that's combined with the typical teenage aversion to work it means that I spent a lot of time feeling like I was banging my head against a wall during the school year. It also didn't help that I wasn't educated in the Rwandan school system, so I didn't know how they were taught or what they expected of me.

Despite these initial (and sometimes, admittedly, ongoing) frustrations, I have experienced some success with my students. One of my directives from Peace Corps and the Rwandan government is to teach in a more "student-centered" fashion, which is different from what my students were accustomed to, which is a more university-like lecture style instruction. Of course, this was difficult at first (for them and for me), but I found that they really started to respond well to some of the activities we would do, like a "market" where they had to buy and sell items and calculate the percent profit. But, my biggest success has to be not just one student but a whole class. At the beginning of the year, one of my classes, Senior 1A had much higher class averages on quizzes and assignments than Senior 1B, but the students in Senior 1B worked a lot harder than those in Senior 1A, and by the end of the year, they always had higher scores. A small victory perhaps, but a victory nonetheless.

The teachers are all young at my school, mostly in their twenties and single, and they are mostly motivated to learn English. I try to do a lot of speaking and listening exercises with them, since that's what they need to teach and they've had all of the grammar in school. Although there have been frustrations with teaching them (mostly related to timeliness), they tend to be easier for me to teach.

Finally, I was asked if I had any funny stories about students. I thought about this one for a while, and found that there are a no single instances of funny stories, but I sometimes find myself laughing or smiling at my students, either out of frustration or when a student does something that somehow reminds me of how young they are (which I don't always remember), such as breaking out in song during class.

So, there you have a background of what I was sent here to do and what it looks like on the ground. There's more I could include, but I can see you getting tired. If you want to know more about school, including things like meetings, grading, exams, and more, just send me an email and I'll give you the 411. I hope you've learned something about teaching and learning in Rwanda. Come back next month. Murabeho!

This month's birthdays: Solange, Hillary
Next month's topic: dress - what's appropriate, influence of the West, cost, etc.