I'm a teacher!

Rose here. On Monday am I arrived at Holy Family Primary School, a Catholic School run by the Rosmini order of nuns, an order I had never heard of before but their mission is education. Sister Mary Gwynneth Dyer is the principal and founder of the school and has built it from the ground up over the last 6 years or so.
Primary School education has only been mandatory in Tanzania since 2001. The school currently has room for Standards 3-6 but the Standard 6 (Griffin’s) class is over 40 students and needs to be split but there is not enough classroom space or teachers.
Sister Gwynneth is a woman with a vision (Ottawa readers – think Joan Gullen in a wimple!). She started with a pre-school then the primary school and is currently breaking ground for a new building to house enough classrooms to accommodate another Standard 6 and the addition of Standard 7 next term.
The school has about 400 students in total and includes a mix of Christian and Muslim students. The socio-economic status of the students ranges from children of “peasants” (saw this on one child’s birth certificate) to the child of an MLA. About 40 are orphans living with extended family. School fees are about the equivalent of 110-120 Canadian dollars per term which includes a uniform and lunch every school day (the only meal many of them receive in the day). Many families cannot pay the fees and are subsidized by the Rosminians.
Many people asked about sending money before I went and if you would like to donate to the school’s building fund or fees for children to attend school, email me with the amount you would like to donate at roseandsal@gmail.com and I’ll make a cash donation to Sister Gwynneth and collect from you when I return.
So Monday am I started my new career as a primary school IT teacher. I taught each class in Standards 3-6 two half hour lessons each for a total of 14 lessons. By the end of the last class Thursday noon, I was exhausted but I loved it. English is their second language but their English is way better than my Kiswahili.
On Monday I learned not to reference typewriters and calculators when introducing computer concepts as most of the children have never heard of either. Most have no power at home let alone any technology. Although many have built concrete houses with metal roofs, some still live in wattle and daub huts with thatched roofs.
My first lesson was the history of and theory relating to the basics of computing. My language became simpler with each class until I was telling them that a CPU was like your brain and a keyboard is how you talk to the computer and tell it things you want it to remember for you and a monitor screen is how the computer talks to you and gives you answers to your questions. In the second class, I introduced the keyboard and had them each type their name using upper and lower case letters and the space bar and the backspace key.
Figuring out what terminology to use and what to teach was one part of my learning curve. The other was classroom management and after a couple of chaotic classes, my instructions have become clearer and order is being restored! Even the chaos was fun though as it occurred with the youngest grade who all wanted desperately to get as close to the computers as possible and touch them for as long as possible. Not knowing the children well, I didn’t recognize them when they took extra turns typing their name but I did note a lot of Agapes in one class and sure enough when I saved the names, Agape and a couple of other children had typed their names four times each instead of once!
Frida, on the other hand, is barely a metre tall and wears a red sweater in 30 degree heat. She positions herself beside the computer for the entire exercise and her little hand darts in whenever someone makes a mistake or can’t find a letter while whispering instructions in Kiswahili to the child trying to type their name.
Any thoughts I had at home about teaching computers being a bit trivial given what I had imagined about the African context have dissipated. The children are sponges for knowledge and their enthusiasm for learning about this technology is boundless. When I asked my last class what they wanted to do on the computer, the first suggestion was write an English poem (this from the “girl’s side” of the room). There was no buzz in the class at this suggestion compared to the response when games were suggested! So, next week’s lessons will introduce the mouse and touch pads using games for practice. However, I can’t explain the rules of minesweeper, hearts, chess, or solitaire in Kiswahili so we will have to use Inkball and Purble Pairs! I’ll introduce text entry including poems next week.
I have had the luxury of having Simon and Sally assist me this week and realized that for the classes where the children are on hands on, I can’t monitor all three computers at the same time (2 laptops we brought and a desktop of Sister G.’s – Windows 98 platform) so Sally will be helping me as much as her commitments allow.
The trip to school is a 50-60 minute walk along sandy roads and paths. It is not too hot if I start out at 7am. So far, I have been fortunate to get a drive back each day either from Sister G going to town or by A & L picking us up to go to Tanga, the nearest bigger town on the coast, to shop for groceries.
Due to a shortage of beds this week with Graham visiting, Sal and I have been staying at a local Hoteli about a 15 minute walk from Hillview House. The walk home at night gives us a chance to see the village after dark when it transforms in the cooler temperature and after market close. Restaurants and bars open up. Music, live and canned, blares from behind walls made of sewn together plastic bags. Food vendors cooking over charcoal sell food on the street. Last night we bought chicken skewers, chips (french fries) and deep fried plantain to take home to our hoteli. It was very tasty.
Today we experienced a bit of post-colonial atmosphere with an afternoon at the Mkonge Hotel, a leftover relic of the British colonial era. We lounged by the pool under palm trees, watched monkeys playing on the lawn and ate a delicious lunch before returning home at sunset. A lovely day.