Teacher Talk: Classes in Namibia

One important difference between school organization here and back home lies in the classes. In the U.S., most high school classes last approximately 40-50 minutes, with a short period between classes for students to move to their next room. Occasionally, some schools use a ‘block scheduling,’ which allows double periods for many classes, especially science classes that require a lab. Many teachers have their own rooms, but not all. Most students take English, Math, history, a science class, a foreign language, gym, lunch, and some type of elective.

In Namibia the classes are 40 minutes long, but there the similarity ends. Learners sit in the same class, in the same seats, all day long. Classes are designated with the grade, adding a letter for each different class in the same grade: 8A, 8B, 9A, 9B, etc. All the students in one class take all the same subjects together; learners who struggle in math but excel in English cannot take remedial math and advanced English. My school has made some provision, however, for additional classes for learners who want to push themselves.

More confusing is the wide array of subjects students take. At my school, learners in grades 8-10 take nine ‘promotional’ subjects: Oshindonga, English, Maths, Life Science, Physical Science, Geography, History, Agriculture, and Business Management. Additionally, learners also take once-a-week non promotional classes in Religious and Moral Education, Computer Skills, Life Skills, and Physical Training. That’s right, the learners have ONE PERIOD PER WEEK OF GYM. Now to some of you that might sound great, but young 14-year olds need to burn off energy more than once a week!

Back home at my old school, student schedules usually remained unchanged from day to day, from week to week. Period 1 was Math with Mr. Factor, period 2 was English with Miss Sym A. Lee, and period 3 was chemistry with Dr. Mole. Here, each class’s schedule changes from day to day. The schedule is so confusing that only in the third time have I begun to get my schedule memorized. On Monday, period 1 could be English, but on Tuesday it’s math, on Wednesday it’s history, etc. Moreover, some classes meet seven times per week, some five, some three, and the non romotionals meet just once.

Although this system seems ludicrously complicated, it does have its advantages. Let’s say that I taught the same topic to both 9A and 9B, but with 9B we didn’t finish because goats invaded the classroom and we spent some time kicking them out. Back home, I would have to cover that material the next day before I could move on. Here, I can go back to 9B during the afternoon study period and finish the lesson, because that same group of learners are still together. Also, teachers will occasionally ‘trade’ or ‘sell’ periods to other teachers who need extra time to finish a topic or give a test. The flexibility is actually quite nice. If I notice that many of my learners are struggling before a test, I simply teach an extra lesson to the class during the afternoon study time.

The rigorous nature of the schedule does not mean, however, that it is rigorously followed. Principals will often call teachers out of their class for meetings. Our principal, Mr. Kalipi, has occasionally called a staff meeting in the middle of the school day, leaving all the classes without teachers. Just this week, he called a meeting during our last period to discuss how we would make up the periods that were to be lost due to a field trip on Friday. I kept thinking, “How will we make up the periods that we have lost by sitting in this meeting?”

A glaring difference is in the amount of time that learners are left unsupervised. Back in NYC, our administrators drilled into us that we could NEVER leave a classroom unsupervised. “What if,” they said, “one learner stabs another with a pencil during the 60 seconds you are out of the room? Then YOU will be responsible for the lawsuit.” As a result, if I desperately needed to go to the bathroom, I had to flag down a passing teacher to watch my class while I ran to the can.

Here, the learners are frequently left to fend for themselves. There are no such things as substitute teachers here. If a teacher is sick, at a workshop, or merely sleeping in the staffroom, the class will simply remain without a teacher. When the principal calls a staff meeting during the day, the learners sit in their classes. If I need to use the toilet or make a photocopy during class, than I just do it. And you know what? When I come back in the room, they’re all fine. Oh sure, they might be talking to each other instead of reading, but not one kid has gouged another’s head out with a pencil yet.

It’s futile to talk about which system is ‘better’ or which one is ‘right.’ However, it is helpful to see that there are advantages and disadvantages to both, and to recognize that there really is no one ‘right’ way of educating.

Would tomorrow's dinner please come to my office IMMEDIATELY?

At my old school in New York, our principal overused the P.A. system, calling out any staff member who was late for a meeting. Mr. Duch, the principal, didn't care if he interrupted classes five times a day, and you could always tell how pissed off he was by how he used the word immediately. If he didn’t use immediately at all, he was in a good mood. Sometimes he intentionally said the word softly, as in “Mr. Jones come down to the principal’s office immediately.” Then, you knew he was angry but trying to keep his temper. Most frequently, however, he would attack the beginning of the word in rage: “Mr. Jones, come down to the principal’s office IMMEDIATELY. Usually these announcements were merely annoying, but occasionally they were in the middle of Regents exams, which was unconscionable.

After yesterday, however, I realize that Mr. Duch can’t compete with a bunch of incompetent men trying to kill six bulls. While the students sat for their April exams, the mission where our school is housed was busy with preparations for a priest's ordination. The mission staff and our students had been busy for several weeks preparing: students in the hostel were made to weed and cut the grasses, a large banner went up, and the nuns and some of the more devout children had been practicing songs since February. On Friday, however, things took a more surreal turn.

Several local headmen donated bulls for the post-ordination feast, and when I got to school on Friday morning, these bulls were wandering around the mission grounds. Halfway through the morning’s three hour exam, a group of men began to try to slaughter the bulls. These guys were terrible bull-slaughterers. I first realized that something was amiss when I heard a shot, followed by the noise of a bull running past the staff room door. I ducked out to see what was going on. To my left, a bull was lumbering past the staff room and turning into the compound where most of the classes are held. Following him were six men. One man had a small rifle, but it was not of a sufficient caliber to bring down a bull. The other five men carried sticks and stones to throw towards at the bulls.


The technique for slaughtering the bull was terribly inefficient and cruel. The men with sticks tried to corner the bull, which usually meant they ran after the bull for a good 20-30 minutes at a crack, occasionally hitting him in the flank with a stick. If they finally did corner an animal, the man with the gun would advance as close as possible, shoot, and the run like hell. Because the gun was too weak or the man's aim too poor, shooting the bull only wounded it. Then angry bull would charge around the mission, sometimes through the through the classroom compound. One particular bull, a large black one, had been shot several times in the face and was pretty angry about the whole situation. I can't blame him. The men chased this particular bull around the mission and the school grounds for a couple of hours.

The Indian nuns and I looked on, somewhere between shocked, and disgusted. The Ovambos, both young and old, enjoyed the spectacle. The men chasing the bulls seemed to think it was some sort of a game. The students watched avidly from the windows of their classrooms, and a few brave ones stepped outside to see what was going on. Whenever a bull ran by their classroom, the children would all scream and run inside, smiling and chattering. Now, mind you, this was in the middle of an exam! I’m glad it wasn’t my test they were taking.

I finally watched the men bring one of the bulls down. They had shot it several times, and when it tried to turn away, several men pelted it in the head and face with large stones. It faltered, swaying unsteadily on its legs as if drunk, but did not fall down. Then one of the men ran behind and grabbed its tail, and the poor creature tried to run more time, dragging the man behind it. But by now the bull was so weak it could not run quickly, and when the other men caught up with it they stoned and shot it to death.

The interruptions to class were bad enough, and far worse than anything my old principal could do. But what I still can’t understand is the wanton cruelty in slaughtering the animals. Had they merely tied up the bull first, they could have been done in minutes rather than hours. There was no reason for these bulls to be chased around the mission for an hour or two, injured and frightened. There was no reason why the men could not have secured a better gun. There was no reason for the men to enjoy this cruelty. The poor bulls were competing in a game they could not win.

Practice Teaching in Rehoboth

After the first week in Windhoek, Namibia’s capital, and we traveled down to Rehoboth where we lived with host families and ran a practice school for four days. Rehoboth is approximately an hour south of Windhoek, and is a city of approximately 40,000. It has one main drag with a dozen or so stores, including two large grocery stores, but the rest of town is unpaved. To get to our school, we drove for 10-15 minutes through flat, sandy roads among mostly small, cement houses. In some parts of town, people live in shacks constructed from corrugated metal and whatever other materials were available.

Fortunately, my homestay was in one of the cement houses, but even in these government-built homes, life was not always comfortable. I stayed with a woman named Joyce Karrigas, her daughter Jodalynn, and her niece Elaine. Joyce had divorced her abusive husband two years prior, and because of an automobile accident, could not hold a job. The only income for the household was Elaine’s full-time job at a local supermarket, where she earned nearly $100 US a month. As a result, the family was very poor, and was unable to fix a broken pipe so our only source of water was a tap just outside the house. There was electricity, however, and a stereo blared gospel, hip-hop, and R&B constantly. At night, a small black and white television tuned to NBC (Namibian Broadcasting Company) played When You Are Mine, a soap opera from Mexico that is the obsession of Namibians. When the show comes on at 8:30 at night, other activity stops.

Interestingly, there were clear differences in status, even in the government-built homes on the sand roads. Sandra, another host mother, was in a much different situation financially. She and her husband both had jobs; she was a teacher at the school, and her husband drove a bus. Together, they may have earned as much $1,500 US monthly. They built an extension to their home, had a clean and modern kitchen with good running water, color TV with satellite, and a brand-new combi (a 15-16 VW van that is about 20% smaller than similar Chevy van in the States). Her family’s English was also better and the children seemed to have a stronger sense that the could be successful.

When we arrived at Oanab Primary School, we were surprised to see HIV/AIDS murals on the walls of a school for children under 10 years of age! There was an assembly area at the school underneath a large tree for shade, and this is where the students waited until classes began. They sat on railroad ties that had been converted into benches. Classes began when one of us rang the large bell that hung underneath the tree, and then students scattered to their classrooms, lining up outside the door for the teacher to let them in.

An unfortunate part of the Rehoboth experience was that half of our group began to experience traveller's diarrhea or more severe GI problems. I spent an entire day in bed, as did about six others who were all losing battles to diarrhea and nausea. We had been lulled into complacency by the modernity of Windhoek, and had trouble adjusting to the bacteria in the water and possibly a virus that went around. Never before in my life have I spent so much time discussing my bodily functions with people who were strangers merely two weeks earlier.


Finally after four days in Rehoboth, we left for the Harddap dam to recuperate.

Training

Welcome to Outapi Odyssey, which is my record of my time as a volunteer teacher of English and math at a school in northern Namibia. I am working here as a volunteer with the nonprofit group WorldTeach, which places college graduates as teachers in developing countries.

The first official part of the WorldTeach Program takes place in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. It is a suprisingly modern-feeling city of approximately 200,000, but it has excellent infrastructure, water, electricity, and modern buildings. The whole group of approximately 20 is staying in a backpackers' hostel and we train in a shady area alongside the dormitories. The hostel is nice and the weather is actually quite pleasant -- not yet above 90, and a very dry heat at that. Evening is cool, sometimes requiring an extra layer even in the summer.

Because I have teaching experience, I was selected as a Teacher Fellow, which means that I share responsibility for some of the training. The first week of training has been pretty intense, because I'm teaching new material for the first time and feel somewhat underprepared. When the rest of the group is relaxing after training, I've been staying up late trying to prepare the next day's lesson. Of course, this is nothing new, but still. I'm looking forward to the next four days when my 'students' will now have some practice teaching sessions too. Soon, they will be feeling the stress with me.

The people in the group are very nice, though I don't feel like I've 'clicked' with anyone yet. We are nearly 20 people. There are three young couples, including two couples who got married less than six months ago. There is one more mature lady from Canada, Bonnie, who seems very nice though I don't know her much yet. Then there are a couple of late 20-somethings, Jesse, Kate, and Jocie, and then a small plethora of people just out of college. Everyone is very nice, but it's also very different of course. I'm a little lonely, and a little unsettled, and can't wait to get to my placement in two weeks so I can finally unpack.

Today we shift locations, going to Rehoboth, a smaller town an hour south of here, for praticum teaching. We also will spend a night on a farm to rest, and then a day at a dam where we can swim. New Year's, we went to a traditional Herero restaurant and were served german potato salad, green salad, rice, carrots, and many roasted goat heads which were carved in front of us. I ate some cheek, ear, and tongue. The tongue was the only thing that I really found palatable. Other than that, we are eating communally and I have not wasted away to nothing!