17 sep - Maria

Eldan school has just opened a computer room and decided that computer lessons are to be given during spoken English classes, so all of this week they have split our classes in two: one half learns about computers while the other half has spoken English class. This means that we now only teach around 20 students – what a luxury! Having class discussions is so much easier and so is keeping them quiet. We like it very much.
The school has also given us a new task: For the past two weeks we have been correcting English weekend diaries for grade 7 and 8C. The first week was horrible as all of the diaries sounded like this:
I woke up from my bed then I ate my breakfast then I washed my hand and leg then I watched television then I went to the market then I ate my dinner then I slept on my bed x2

We taught them a bit about commas and words they could use to replace “then”. We also tried talking about creativity and individuality, but I don’t know how much they understood. The majority of this week’s diaries were a bit better than last week’s, but still the same (some added a “I was happy” and thought they were being very creative), however, there were some really great ones in between. There was a little fellow who wrote something like this:

Saturday: I got up and ate my breakfast. I was very happy because I rode my bicycle from 2 to 6. Then I watched television and slept.
Sunday: I was very afraid because I rode my bicycle again to Jimma airport. There I met two police officers.
“You do not have license plate,” they said. Then they hit me, but it was necessary.

Simple but effective. A real story with a build up and everything.
I really look forward to reading next week’s entries, and I’m sure the students will try very hard to be creative as we start grading them next week also.

One thing which has been the most shocking feature of the school is the fighting. Everyone hits everyone (girls included) and we see fights every single day. The teachers also do not hesitate to hit the students and usually use sticks to keep the students under control. We see them treating the students like cattle: If they don’t move fast enough, they hit them, if they move in the wrong direction they hit them and if they fight they hit them.

We tried having some class discussions about fighting where we also taught the students what the different words you can use to describe fighting are. You see, they think that everything is called “kicking” which makes it a bit confusing for us when they come up to us and say “He kick me!” but mean something completely different. We taught them” hit, slap, punch, kick, pinch, bite, strangle, throw a rock at someone, attack someone and insult someone” (they loved it and I don’t think I have ever seen that many students taking notes before). We always ended the class by trying to get them to talk about the right of teachers and parents to hit children. Some of the points they made were interesting, but I think it might have been too difficult a discussion topic for their level of English.
I actually think that I am getting more and more accustomed to the fighting. There are especially two boys in 7B who like me very much and talk to me quite a lot, and who I also like very much. However, they always fight and then just laugh and smile when I stop them. They are best friends and inseparable (so I always punish them by moving them away from each other) and don’t really see what’s wrong with hitting each other. I guess you just have to take it with a bit of humour (unless it’s a really serious fight) and keep in mind that they are much more used to hitting and being hit and therefore don’t care about it as much as we do. As one of the teachers always tells me: “This is Africa man….” I guess I can’t expect them to act like they do in little peaceful Faroe Islands. Here defending yourself is important and if you don’t fight, you aren’t strong. I mean, when the police and teachers hit my students, how much can I then expect of them?
- Maria