On second thought, no please don’t. I might be officially a teacher, but I still don’t feel like it. Holy cow. Two days of teaching done already. I’m exhausted! I thought school as a student was hard, but I had no idea what it was like to be a teacher. This is a great experience though. I probably won’t be actively looking for a career in teaching, but it is an invaluable skill to have.
Day One was a bit hectic. Danielle and I woke up at 5:00AM to run like we always do, and a new guy, Mike, came to pick us up to go to the gym. As Danielle got into the car, Mike’s car ran out of gas (thank goodness Danielle forgot her wallet inside and had to go back in before we left, otherwise we would have ran out of gas on the highway). So, we called the car company and asked them to send us a new car. They said, “Okay, it will be about ten minutes,” which means it will really be about 40. Ironically, the car comes to pick us up right as Mike gets gas in his car. Forty-five minutes ago, when we needed it, no car. Now, when we’re nearly too late to run, two cars!
So we go to the gym, work out quickly, and get back to our house with barely enough time to make a quick lunch, change, grab our course materials and head out the door (the driver just waited outside for us). I thought we were going to be late to Masianokeng, but we showed up at 8:02AM. I guess that is late, because we should have been there at least a half hour early to get to our classrooms and set up, but it ended up not being an issue. Why is being 32 minutes late not an issue on the first day, you ask? Well, it is because there were 5 people on campus at 8:02AM – Ann, Karthik, Robby, myself, and two students. No teachers to let us in the classroom, and no 48 other students to teach. Awesome.
After about half an hour of students trickling in and still no one to unlock the gates we need, Robby and I decided to find any classroom and use it until we were able to get into the regular classroom. By 9 o’clock, we have 12 of our 30 students. Lesson – punctuality isn’t high on the list of Basotho values, especially when it is cold.
The rest of the day went pretty well. We ended up with 17 students by the end of the day, and I know most of their names already. That afternoon, I worked on a project that took a couple hours, but there were some students hanging around who wanted to see my computer, so I let them watch Twilight on it. To all of you Twilight fans, fear not. I have brought the Good Word to Lesotho. They thought it was a great movie (The first chase scene in Casino Royale went over very well today too.).
Monday we tried to do a lot of ice breakers to get acquainted, so today was the first full day of lessons. We taught bookkeeping, marketing, and math problem solving strategies. Those lessons all went well, but I really wanted to share my experience from the debriefing of the leadership lesson on goal setting that we taught yesterday.
Teaching microenterprise to my students comprises more than just giving them the ability to enter data in a ledger or create an advertisement. I’ve noticed little things while observing my students over the past few days. When faced with adversity, the student seem to shrink from creativity. For instance, we played a team building game where six students had to figure out how to all fit on a 8×11 sheet of paper. It is possible, but it takes teamwork and creativity. As I watched, I saw that the students all jumped on top of each other to fit or copied the strategies of other groups. It was more difficult for them to creatively solve the problem than to work together to make it happen. A similar phenomenon happened when we played the Human Knot game. Additionally, when I ask a question, the students are more confident when giving a rote memorized definition of “capital” rather than offer opinions on different types of successful businesses.
I know I’ve expressed frustration with the direct style of teaching in Lesotho whereby students are taught how to find the answer to a problem rather than employing problem solving strategies, but I’m starting to wonder if that style of learning contributes to the way students interact with external circumstances. There is no “human knot problem solution,” so instead of using creative problem solving skills, the students get lost and frustrated or copy someone else, regardless of whether or not that example is successful. This would explain why there are countless street vendors with identical stores lining the highway all selling fruit, bread, and cell phone airtime. No one has ever learned to think independently or outside the box, so when the situation arises that someone can open small business, they copy what already exists rather than innovating and identifying an under-served market. Sadly, it is the copy mentality that causes so many of these businesses to fail. There is just not enough demand in Maseru to support the hundreds of identical street vendors selling indentical goods.
What I’m trying to say is that I want to teach these students more than just microenterprise skills. I also want to reshape the way they think into a more creative, assertive, and optimistic mindset so that they can create stronger and more unique businesses and solve their own problems rather than relying on the “expertise” of Westerners. This relates back to the conversation between Jane and Madeline about aid in Africa, but that would be a lot more writing, and I’m not totally confident about it yet. Regardless, it is an interesting train of thought that has been dominating my musings lately, and I’m sure this isn’t the last I’ll write of it.
Now, on the lighter side.
Some lessons learned from teaching after two days:
1. The concept behind Rock, Paper, Scissors is foreign to Basotho and nearly impossible to teach.
2. Every lesson takes half as much time as you think it will.
3. I talk too fast.
Have I discussed the state of automobile traffic in Lesotho? Probably not, because I’ve been trying to convince many people that Africa is a safe and nice country. And while I still whole heartedly agree with that, I would like to see a driver from Massachusetts or New York survive in Maseru. The public transportation system consists of 16 passenger vans utilizing cardboard signs to designate routes and employs Mario Andretti reincarnations as drivers. For those who don’t enjoy the game “Chicken” I suggest you keep your eyes closed for the duration of the taxi ride. Soccer is the favorite pasttime, but I’m pretty sure narrowly missed motor vehicle accidents are second on the list.
The game goes something like this: Drive as fast as possible regardless of speed limit or length of road. People, animals, and other cars are merely obstacles in your ultimate goal of record timing driving, and you get bonus points for close calls. The potholes (which are the only thing that is Texas-sized in this Maryland-sized country) and random unmarked speed bumps are the only true dangers in your driving, because they have the potential to really screw up your car. An experienced driver, though, has carefully mapped out the would-be game enders and has perfected the art of swerving and slowing down at the last minute to render the passenger with a driving experience that is similar to one of those old jerky 3D space rides at Disney World. Oh, and seatbelts? You lose points for wearing seatbelts. What are you trying to say, you think I’m a bad driver?
Conveniently, the frequent near death experiences of driving in Maseru has given me an opportunity to relive many old memories that I had nearly forgotten, like the time my favorite ice cream fell in the mud, and the time that I fell down a flight of stairs in front of 200 people. When I get back to the US, I’m not sure what will be harder to readjust to – driving on the right side of the road or driving without the now familiar feeling of adrenaline coursing through my body.
Really, Mom. Don’t ever come to Lesotho. The panic will probably kill you.