I don’t know whether I’ve been experiencing the kindness of strangers or the strangeness of those who are kind but I’ve certainly had a week of incredible and unusual gestures. In three days I have had sweet corn and hard boiled eggs with head teachers in their offices, been force fed orange fantas, had my bag stuffed to the brim with biscuits, been presented with a huge bag of tree tomatoes and passion fruit and been stared at, thanked, and hand shaked endlessly. One Head Teacher walked me twenty minutes through the country paths from his school to the next when my moto got a flat tire – he carried my backpack and helmet all the way.
My days are certainly not average. I get to work my motorbike, I arrive at schools in the middle of nowhere down dirt tracks, over precarious log bridges and through fields of bananas and potatoes. I arrive not knowing whether I will be greeted by a prepared head teacher or a hoard of inquisitive faces, kicking up dust and surrounding me in seconds. I communicate in pigeon English and French I didn’t even know I had. I watch lessons in dark classrooms perched on wooden benches. And incredibly I love it.
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| One of my schools - Nemba II |
Sometimes it feels quite overwhelming to receive the response I do. I’m certainly not sure I’d respond all that well if some complete stranger turned up in my classroom in the UK and took it upon themselves to watch my teaching and advise me on how to improve. On so many levels there are opportunities to question what I’m doing. Who am I to be telling teachers how to improve their methodology? Do I really have something to offer? Can I come up with solutions which are practical, contextual, helpful? But what I find incredible, is that when I stop questioning the way I’ll be received and what I have to offer, what I find is that I am received openly and with what can really only be described as gratitude and that I can think on my feet and offer feedback that is practical. I’ve only been into five schools this week, normally two a day. Sometimes I get the impression that no one has let the teachers know I’ll be there, and when I feedback to them they look nervous, uncomfortable and even expressionless. Yet, despite these perceptions, in fact they all end their session with me smiling, thanking me for my help, telling me they are very happy to be working with me. I certainly anticipated when I started here in Rwanda that I might meet some resistance – to change, to an apparently increased workload, to an outsider – but I’ve met none. Every teachers seems so open to what I have to offer. They WANT to improve, they WANT new ideas, they WANT to work with me.
What I HAVE had however has been some amusing and slightly awkward moments like the time the Head Teacher decided that his secondary students (this particular schools went up to S3 – senior 3) needed to be introduced to me as I was fielding a fair amount of attention as I moved round the school. Apparently, I was told, they were fascinated by my shoes and my clothes despite my very proper attire, so he told them I would present myself to them formally. I was NOT part of this little agreement and shortly after found myself at the looking down from a height at a playground of over 500 purple and mustard clad secondary school children, all standing in perfect lines in silence waiting for this grand speech that I was apparently going to make!! So that wasn’t at all overwhelming! I got laughs, claps and their undivided attention. Quite amazing, and certainly a snap shot on the virtual camera in my head. So already I am fascinated to find out what I will see next week when I go back to the same schools and the same teachers. Will they have had a go and some of the things I discussed? Will changes already have been made? Will they be feeling positive? The only problem is that it is exhausting. The school day starts at 7:20, normally it has taken about half an hour to get there, sometimes longer, I stay until 11:40 when the first shift of children have finished their day at school, get my moto to the next school and stay until 5:00. I don’t know how the teachers get through their days.
So work has really started, I just hope the schools will stop plying me with fanta as the toilet facilities leave a lot to be desired!!
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