17 of April, 2017
As with various of my other blog posts, this post will be a
hodgepodge of stories highlighting the most interesting and important aspects
of the past 4 weeks.
To get started, I’m
currently sitting in an air-conditioned Hotel room after taking a lovely running
hot water shower! Needless to say, it’s been
a good day. The last time I had a quality shower with a temperature gauge I
could easily adjust and plenty of water pressure was the end of November, 2016.
And I bought peanut butter, coffee, and oatmeal during my lunch break today so
I’m set for the next set of weeks! I am
in Nampula City which is one of the largest cities in northern Mozambique
attending a Peace Corps conference. Now that we’ve been
teaching for a month, we are receiving some more teacher-training and doing an
overview of project design/management so we can begin to write and apply for
small grants to fund community based projects.
Currently my school is finalizing student grades and the
second trimester begins next week. To give an overview of the school schedule,
the trimesters are about 12 weeks long. The second to last week of the
trimester is used to do state exams (THE ENTIRE WEEK). The last week of the
trimester is meant for makeup work so I went to class hoping to teach and use
the time to review and prepare for the following trimester. Of all 300 students
that I have, maybe 50 showed up – in TOTAL.
And this brings us to the meat of my current frustrations. The teachers had a
meeting the first day of last week to compile a list of all the students who
are “required” to pass. Generally, this list
includes but is not limited to children, cousins, nephews, nieces, and friends
of teachers. After compiling the list, each teacher is “assigned” 5-10
students. The teacher then “ensures” each of those students is passing all
their classes. For example, if a teacher is responsible for 5 of the 8th
grade students then the teacher will find all of the 8th grade
teachers and ask to see the student’s
grade. If the student is not passing, the teacher requests that the 8th
grade teacher raises the students grade…
Knowing that this grade changing occurs, I figured it would
take place behind closed doors or at least discretely. After arriving to
campus, I had about 10 teachers asking to see my grades and requesting me to
increase students’ final grades in my class. We’ve been told this happens. However, I
am still surprised by the overtness of the process. From other volunteers, I
have heard that the grades I submit will be changed basically no matter what.
So, I decided to get my hands a little messy and at least have some control
over the madness. If a student was going to be “forced” to pass my class because they are a
son/daughter of a town leader, then I am going to make sure they earn the grade
I am being forced to give them.
In Mozambique grades are all out of 20 points. A 10 out of
20 is passing. To pass a grade one can fail one class with an 8 or 9 (aka to
pass from 8th grade to 9th grade). If a student receives
below a 7 in any subject after the first trimester they immediately fail out of
school. As teachers requested that I pass students I would increase grades
below a 7 to a 7. 8s and 9s I increased to a 10. I recorded every student whose
grade was increased and the number of points increased. First day of the second
trimester I will be informing those students that they are fortunate enough to
have someone in the administration who requested their grade be increased – and I will inform them about how
many extra points they were given. I will require these students to perform at
least two-fold the work I expect of students when earning points back. If these
students fail to earn the points given to them, I will deduct that many points
from their second trimester grade.
During this process, there were 3 teachers who began
vigorously yelling at me. The first started because I told a fellow teacher I
would not raise a specific student’s grade
from a 4 to a 7. At first, I assumed this student was a late addition to my
class because he did not have an enrollment number and had only taken the
second test and final state exam. But the teacher told me the student has been
in my class the entire year – which is
a bit odd because this student has done 0 of the homework assignments, 0 of the
in-class assignments (graded on completion), and shown up to 2 classes the
entire trimester: the second test and the state exam. I told the teacher I
would not raise this student’s
grade. Oh boy, she was not okay with hearing that…
Then came two other teachers who had children in my 8th
grade classes. Both of their children were passing my class – one with a 10 and the other with an
11. I set a hard and fast rule that I will not raise magically raise the grade
of any student who is already passing. Students who are failing – I get it. The system has failed many
students. Females are setup to fail from the get go. My students rise and fall
with the sun so as the sun continues to rise later in the day, students are
later and later to my class. Life sucks and is unfair sometimes. So I try to
give enough opportunities to adjust for the failing system. But students who
are already passing?? Geeez, maybe if you really wanted your son/daughter to
get a 14 in my class instead of an 11 you should have helped them with the HW
or maybe helped them do one of the make-up opportunities… One teacher said “friend,
come on, just raise it two points. I’m only
asking for two points for my child. Just raise it from a 10 to a 12”. My response – “If your
child wants an average of a 12, then they need to earn a 14 next trimester.
They can start by doing the make-up work due tomorrow at noon”
Background info – I gave
my students one final piece of make-up work. It would help students who have
below a 10 pass the first trimester. For students who have above a 10, it would
help with their second trimester grade.
After responding to this teacher, I drew quite the attention
for going on a short tangent about how grade changing is destructive to the development
of the future. My translated tangent went something like this –
“I did not come to pass your
friends and family members. I came to teach. We’re not
here to help our families. We’re here
to help our communities. We’re not here
to give magical passing grades. We’re here
to teach and prepare our communities for the future”
To be completely honest, I feel a little dirty and still a
little angry and sad. I have changed grades based on students who are favorited
by other teachers. Hopefully I’m able
to make them earnt the points magically awarded to them. On the whole – I am sooooo incredibly proud of my 8th
grade students. They have gone farther than they realize in a short 12 weeks. I
am excited to get back in the classroom and resume teaching next week. It’s weird because it’s been almost 3 weeks since the last
time I taught a class.
Okay okay deep breath.
Now onto some stories! Friday of last week I left site to
spend a little time visiting other volunteers. I’m
currently training for a half-marathon so Saturday morning I went out for a ran
at this volunteer’s site. Their house is
already fairly isolated and out in the fields. After about 30 minutes of
running I was several miles deep into the farmlands. By this point, for most
people who caught a glimpse of me, I was probably the first if not one of the
first white people they had ever seen. So I’m just
running along greeting people in the local language (Makua – a bantu language) explaining that I’m going for a stroll. In the far
distance I see two young boys walking behind their mother in the corn field.
Not wanting to scare them, I ran through a bush so they know I’m behind them from a distance (rather
than a white guy magically appearing behind them when they hear my footsteps).
The boys stop in their tracks and turn around – jaws drop
and their faces are like “OMG
WHAT IS THAT!”. I’ve seen this face plenty before and it tends to make me
laugh. The boys say something to their mother and see turns around. She let’s out this HURLING SCREAM and just
starts sprinting. The boys freak out and are running behind her calling “MOMMMY MOOOMMMMMMYYYYY!!!”. So I think to myself – whelp dang, this is exactly what I
was trying to avoid.
Adding a little more context, it’s about 5:45 AM so not long after sunrise and I’m running straight west so the sun is
at my back and consequently straight in their faces. This is the only trail so
I just keep running along hoping that eventually they let me get in earshot so
I can greet them in the local language. So just picture this – the sun is in your eyes and this
white thing is running toward you. You’ve
heard about foreigners but never seen one. Clearly, THERE IS A GHOST CHASING
YOU.
Thankfully, a long minute later the mother and boys find the
father and hide behind him. He is very calm and as I pass by I speak to him in
the local language. In Portuguese he responds “Oh you’re working out?” To which I say I am and apologize
for scaring his family… So
that was an interesting encounter on the whole. I’m glad
I’ve learned enough local language to
explain very basic phrases and sentiments.
Transitioning to the following day and the following story,
my friend and I went to Easter mass at one of the Catholic churches in the
town. When we arrived, the men were sitting on benches along the sides and the
women and children were sitting on straw mats on the floor. My friend and I
joined the women and children on the floor. A man came up to me and said “there’s a
spot on the bench right next to me, come sit with me” to which I told him I want to sit with my friend. Then
another man came up and said “the
both of you should sit in these chairs at the front” to which we replied, “no, but
thank you. We are happy to sit here”. When
the mass began and everyone stood up, someone brought a bench in from the back
of the church and placed it right behind us. This time they did not ask… After the first hour of the
three-hour long service, we were very happy to be sitting on a bench.
The service was entirely done in Makua – thankfully! We were concerned that
they would translate the Makua into Portuguese just for us two which would have
significantly lengthened the mass. I enjoyed listening to the Makua mass
because I could pick out words here and there and I was able to tell when
Portuguese words were interjected. It’s
amazing how far my ability to listen to languages has come in 8 months. Back in
September and October I could not even differentiate Portuguese from the local bantu
languages…
Wrapping things up – I’m thankful to be in a room with AC
right now and have access to nice showers. It’s
lovely reconnecting with my fellow volunteers and swapping stories and
experiences. If you’ve been wondering about the
household projects – I have continued to build
things and have added desks with shelves to my room and my roommate’s room! Next up is building us some chairs.
Then I want to build picnic benches for the local kids when they come over to
draw.
Oh and lastly, “Fantasma
na Machamba” = “Ghost in the Field”
As always, thank you for reading my blogpost, following
along with my journey, and for all of the continued love and support.
~Daniel Bladow
P.S. Except from a conversation with a student
Student: “Thank
you for giving me a 14 teacher!”
Me: “I gave
you the grade you earned, not a single point more and not a single point less”
Student: “Ya?”
Me: “Ya. I
suppose you must have put in the work to earn a 14. I mean, spending 3 hours at
my house everyday practicing math is a lot of practice”
Student: “YES IT
IS”
Me: “Maybe
if you keep it up next trimester you’ll earn
a 16, or an 18, or WOW a 20?”
Student: “WOW”
The
first assignment of the year this student received a 5 out of 20.
