I Go To School

September 30, 2008

My hardest cross- cultural experience so far. Primary school- I hated it in the states. I don't know why I thought that I would like it here. Maybe because here the teachers are my friends, there won't be any homework, I am already different so there is no reason to try to fit in. I had visited the classes briefly before, just to introduce myself, but now I was going for an entire day. I got ready- dressed conservatively, professionally. I wore my teacher shoes. I got to school at 7.30- greeted the head teacher and went to the office for the teachers. They showed me to what will be my desk, they called me "Mwalimu Brie"- even though I have yet to teach anyone anything.

I was to spend 20 minutes watching each teacher teach something before rotating to the next class. Different than American schools, here the teachers rotate and the students stay in the class. There are seven levels- the last five are split into two "streams"- making 12 classes at my school, with 990 students at the school this makes each class enormous. I cannot really explain what it is like to walk into a classroom at the primary school. Do I talk about the dark rooms with dirty walls? Or maybe I should start with the unraveling red sweaters covering filthy white button-ups, over too big blue skirts and shorts? But no, I think I will start with the eyes- all the big brown eyes staring in wonder as I walk into the room. When I make eye contact with a student they smile, exposing small white teeth and become embarrassed and look away. I watch them assess me, and am reminded of West Linn High School where everyone is seeing what you wore that day and if you have worn it before. However, here there is no judgement, only interest and a slight fear. I don't mind, I feel fear too. There is nothing like having the eyes of about 80 African children on you. I want to know all of them, but there are just too many. They stand up in unison and greet me when I enter the room, the way that they have been taught. They stay standing until I tell them to sit down. Then they sit. Cramped, six or so to a small bench, hovering over one lesson book to share.

First I watch Mjemah teach math- geometry. I haven't taken math since I was a junior in high school and I didn't understand it then, so I am not getting much out of it in Kiswahili. Next, he takes me to Jen's classroom. We walk in, she has her back to us, she is beating a student on the back, the student is facing me, I can read nothing from his face. I look to Mjemah, there is no sign of shock on his face. Jen stops as soon as she sees we are there. She tells me in English that this boy did not do his exercise. Jen is my friend. I knew it was okay to beat students in schools here, but I was not really prepared. I made an excuse in my head- "This is a bad student"- even though I knew if I went to primary school here I would have been beaten plenty too. She goes on with teaching, but I am slightly shaken. Each class I go to, I feel the teacher stress a bit, like I am an auditor checking up on them. The students are slightly stressed too- when a question is asked they are all eager to answer. In Katherine's class she gets in trouble, but luckily not beaten, for enthusiastically standing up while raising her hand to answer a question. All the while the kids make eye contact with me . I told Juster about this and she laughed and said, "Brie they are all so silly, really. They all think that if they show you that they are the smartest and best you might keep them." "Keep them," I said, "Don't they have parents?" She replied with, "Yes, most of them do- but they want you to take them." "Take them where?" I asked. Her response, "They want you to take them anywhere." I reminded her that I wasn't married and would probably not be capable of caring for 990 seven to fourteen year olds.

I watched all 15 of the teachers teach something. I saw nine of them beat a child, two of them beat their entire class. I cannot really convey the horror of it. I am still in shock even as I type this. I know I am pretty overly sensitive to the ways of the world, I cannot even watch a violent movie. I have seen parents hit their kids in the states, I have hit my siblings, but watching a child get beaten in school is entirely different. Especially an African child. Imagine the child I have described- ragged uniform, thin, shaved head, big eyes,- being hit repeatedly. During the two class beatings, I was unsure of what to do. One teacher came in with two sticks, handed one to the main teacher, and the students all put out their hands. Wap! Wap! Twice on each hand, on each student, like a whip in the wind and then connecting with bare skin. I looked away- I could not meet the students eyes, I could not condone what was being done. The sound would not leave my head. I thought about standing up and yelling for them to stop it. I thought about walking out. I thought about going to the students who had already been beaten and kissing there hands like we would do to an injured child in the states. But I did none of this. I looked away- tears threatening to roll down my cheeks. I said in my head, "Brienne, this is not the time- you are an anthropologist (which I keep telling myself to deal with a lot of what happens here.) You are just hear to observe. The teachers don't know any better- this is what was done to them when they were in school. Just because this is not my way, doesn't mean that my way is better or right and this is wrong." But deep in my heart I still felt this was wrong. None of the students cried, but they could not keep the tears from streaming down there cheeks in pain as they held their red hands. Shame written on there faces when they looked at me- I wanted to shrink into the wall.

When I was able to escape, I text Josh, who teaches at a secondary school and I know has had to see a lot of this. I text fear, frustration, guilt. He text back- opportunity. He advised me to pull the teachers aside, explain our methods in America, to set a different example, to remind them of TZ corporal punishment laws, to start a dialogue. I pulled both Jen and Juster aside later to talk about what I felt. (I did not see Juster beat a student, but instead teach a pretty good English class, but I know from this conversation that she has.) They both told me that African students are more stubborn than American students- which is funny, because they both admitted that they didn't in fact know any American students. Mostly, I listened to start with, I wanted to know why they believed that beatings would work. It just seemed to be the only option that they had thought of. Juster had an interesting response, " We learned this way from you white people. This is the way that you used to control Africans." Ouch! Thanks again colonization- the root of all evils here. I told her an American teacher would go to jail for what I had seen that day. This shocked her a bit, and she reminded me that in America we treat children as equals, which they are not. I am brainstorming more talks about these issues, but for now I just told them that students in my classes would not be beaten. They both laughed and said, "How will you control them? You won't teach them anything then. It will never work, you will get nothing from them." I told them I will control them through friendship, admiration, through mutual respect, through love- not through fear. They thought about this a minute, but they still don't believe that it could work.

At the start of the new year, I am hoping to begin to teach a health/life skills class to both girls and boys at the school. It will be taught in both English and Kiswahili, so that I can practice and they can begin some English lessons. It will answer health questions and have a strong arts component because this is not taught in schools. We will put on productions, write and draw about health issues for other students and the community. And there will be no beatings. Next to this, Primary school in the states was a piece of cake.