About a year ago, Kelly and I arrived at our new site full of enthusiasm and excitement and hope. We were so happy that we made the decision to join Peace Corps. The Kilimanjaro region that was to be our home for the next two years was beautiful and temperate. There was much talk of extending to a third year. We thought our school to be progressive, ready to take advantage of the experiences, skills and opportunities that come with having two mid-career Peace Corps Volunteers at their site. We had a staff development where we crafted a mission and vision statement, and a set of professional expectations for teachers. In hindsight, that was our high point and things started to unravel after that. Fast forward one year later…
The following incidents will demonstrate the current state of affairs at our school right now.
In late September, I was teaching when I heard my homeroom students in the classroom next door getting hit as part of the regular corporal punishment that is systemic and had been ramping up as of late. I continued to teach and to try to ignore it. I say ignore it painfully since this was not the first time this had occurred at school, and interfering in the past had not created any change. However, the beatings continued for 10, 20 and maybe 30 minutes. All of a sudden, I find myself walking over to the next classroom. There, I found one of our teachers hitting my students with a belt. “What are you doing? Why are you hitting students with a belt?” He ignored me and continued to hit Calvina, who was sitting in the front. Then, he walked away from me and proceeded to hit Neema. I was furious. I tried blocking him and throwing myself against him to get him to stop. He moved away from me, and I followed with my arms out. I was standing in between a desk and its seat when I lost my balance and went down backwards.
Into this scene, my white knight walked in. “What did you do? Did you push my wife down?” Kelly grabbed him and planned how he was going to pulverize this guy. In the background, he heard me say that I fell. Both Kelly and I could smell the alcohol emanating from him. At this point, I was infuriated. “You’re drunk! You’re drunk, and you’re hitting kids! Get out of school!”
Somehow, I went back to teaching my class, albeit shook up. I guess it is ingrained in me to do my job. Kelly packed up and returned home before he hit the guy. I finished teaching my class and also went home afterwards. We were very troubled by this incident, because we both got physical and enraged. How dare this teacher be allowed to come to school drunk, and to beat kids? Yes, corporal punishment is condoned here, and it is a part of their culture. Teachers are allowed to cane students four times with a stick. We were told that hitting students is the “last resort.” Our observation is that hitting students is the first option for teachers. For some teachers, carrying a stick to class is more important to them than carrying chalk and a blackboard eraser. This teacher disregarded the policy on corporal punishment, and wanted to hurt students for not doing the assignment that he gave them.
We have observed this same teacher abusing his authority multiple times. He is supposed to use a stick, not a belt. There was an incident where he borrowed a belt from one of my students to whack some day scholars because they were late. I observed and counted the number of times from afar, 10, 8 and 7 times. Ironically, he was also late… See the hypocrisy? This same teacher would sign in, leave the school if the headmaster is absent, and return later with alcohol on his breath. When he disciplines students, it is to punish them and to inflict pain with as much strength as he can muster, and it is significant because he is sizable. We have observed him skipping his class because he has to correct exams. He frequently goes to class late and leaves early. And he is not the only teacher not doing his job. But he antagonizes us because he intentionally abuses students.
Our academic master came up with a plan to use English blocks. These would be wooden blocks painted with the words “Speak English” which, in theory, are designed to encourage students to speak English in class. If a student was caught speaking Kiswahili in class, he would get the block. The next student that he heard Kiswahili from, he would pass the English block to. At the end of the day, you would have a chain of students who received the English block. Kelly was asked to create the English blocks. Having seen plenty of abusive corporal punishment by this point, he wanted to know what the punishment would be. He was assured that caning would not be used. Kelly made the English blocks very slowly in order to give the academic master time to work with other teachers and to come up with ways to encourage students to speak English. The only option that they came up with was to cane students. When the blocks were completed, without informing us, it was “decided” that the Teacher-on-Duty would cane the students with the English block at the end of each day.
In reaction, we put forth a proposal to work with Form I students to practice their English if they had received the English block. Our reasoning was that students don’t know English, so how is caning them going to improve their English? The assumption here is that students are lazy and are not trying, rather than how can we support students in learning English? Our proposal was accepted. Kelly and I worked together to make sure that one of us is available afterschool to help this group with their English and to “save” them from caning. Our plan worked for about a week. When I proceeded to take my Form I students to a classroom to work with them on their English skills the following week, I was told to “Leave us!” All students will get caned, it was “decided.” Either other students complained about the Form I getting different treatment, or some Form I students got arrogant because they felt exempted from caning. When they “decided” not to allow us to teach Form I students English in lieu of caning, they did not inform us. In addition, Kelly made those English blocks and was promised that caning would not be part of the English block. So, we brought this matter to the headmaster.
Our headmaster asked us to sit down with the academic committee to iron out our differences. There was my counterpart, a calm and seasoned teacher, and other members of the academic committee. It was at this meeting that one of the members pointed his finger at me as he spoke and told us that we should not interfere, and that hitting students is part of Tanzanian culture. We are reminded that culture can be a beast! Just because something is part of your culture doesn’t mean that it is necessary good, and that it should continue forever. Our wise Tanzanian friend/shopkeeper at school nailed it when he said, “culture is dynamic.” End result of the meeting - all students will be caned for speaking Kiswahili. If we wanted to help them with English, we could do so after the caning.
The day before we were to start mid-term exams for Form I and III students in September, a teacher made the announcement that the security guard suspected some students of having cell phones. That precipitated a body search of these forbidden goods. We separated the students by gender. I was charged with frisking the girls, looking through their book bags and their desks for any electronic goods or weapons. I found none. I’m not sure how good my frisking was since I never received this training while I was getting my Masters in Education. After that, we moved to the dormitory and proceeded to look under student mattresses, suitcases and storage boxes. Imagine a room stuffed with mattresses and belongings. It took four female staff members over an hour to go through one dorm room, and there were 10 more rooms. I got very frustrated. How were we supposed to finish checking all the rooms when it was 1:00 pm already? The students were not even being allowed to eat lunch. Our search up to that point yielded nothing. I tried sharing my point of view with the head female “inspector” but she ignored me. Then, I walked over to the male dormitories to see if I could persuade any other teachers. No luck. My efforts resulted in me walking away from the situation, annoyed and frustrated. Then, I saw my headmaster and shared my viewpoints again. He listened and explained that the school cannot allow any electronics because students will try to charge those items by rigging the lights. So yes, I can understand why they feel the need to do this, but I wonder if there are other ways of handling this situation. I went home after that incident, feeling very guilty that I couldn’t do my job of inspection but not guilty enough to want to be there.
Students in Form II and IV (about 10 and 12th grade, respectively) experience tremendous pressure due to the national examinations that occur at the end of the year. Because of these high stakes exams, our school gave them one exam after another. It seems that they are scheduled for the next exam, as their teachers finish grading the previous exam. Each set of exams takes one week, and no teaching occurs during that time. They can’t go home during school breaks, like the other grades, or their break period is significantly truncated. As a way to “push” students, the academic master uses negative mobility. When a student performs better from set of exams to the next, she is said to have “positive mobility,” or moving up. Conversely, when a student performs worse on the average, he has “negative mobility.” The first three students with the biggest gains get a notebook. The students with negative mobility get caning during afternoon assembly. A change of even -1% could warrant caning. In addition, the academic master divides the Form Two students into two groups, the top group and the bottom group. Students may move back and forth, depending on their performance after each exam. Have we mentioned the grading scale here? To get an A, you could earn anywhere from 75-100%; B+ 60-74; B 50-59; C 40-49; D 30-39; E 20-29; F 19 and below. Despite this generous grading scale, I still have about 50% of my students failing my math mid-term, at 19% or below.
Whenever there are exams at Boloti, teachers are assigned to “invigilate.” That is, they are supposed to monitor the testing environment to prevent cheating. In our naïve first three months here, the entire staff agreed that it was important for the teachers to do their jobs with integrity. That is, be present in the classroom rather than leave the classroom, and watch students instead of other things. During the last mid-term exam in September, I had to check the validity of my math exams for about 15 students. Many of them had answers, but no work to support it. One student’s exam was almost identical to another for the first few pages. When I had students re-do some problems, one student said that she “imagined” the answer. Another student thought that was a brilliant answer, so she also said that she “imagined” the answer as well. Kelly also had about 20 students re-take his English mid-term. On the re-takes, students moved from an A to an F because they cheated when the teacher left the room he was invigilating.
These incidents that I have described fill us with frustration, anger and helplessness. It is a clash of cultures, a clash of educational pedagogy, and a clash of professional work ethic. It is our failure to integrate and to accept these practices that is causing us much suffering. However, to accept these actions with equanimity seems like a compromise on our values.
A year ago, Kelly and I thought that we would extend for a third year. Our house is nice and peaceful. Our school and co-workers seem very cool. Month by month, our honeymoon period gradually wore away. Believe it or not, we have considered quitting at least a few times now. It is now a test of our endurance and perseverance to continue to stay here and do our job. Time will tell if we will make it to our two year commitment. Both of us are dedicated and responsible people, but is that enough? We are saving a nice bottle of wine to celebrate the end of this school year. If we can finish this school year, we will be closer to completing our commitment.