The Realities

Mattresses arriving for participants who are staying over. Wires had to be moved for clearance!

Tuesday July 15^th 

We arrived at school by 8:30 with Barb who has recovered. We spent the first two hours of the morning sitting and listening as Ernest and a Ministry woman outlined the syllabus and the importance of following it and writing detailed lesson plans.

Lyle did the activity where everyone sits on a chair in a circle and then the person in the centre says: If you are wearing a blue shirt, change chairs. The person who is last gives the next command. The participants love the energizers and even though they don't always get the instructions and rules at the beginning, they laugh and smile a lot.

Barb and I lead a discussion (with the grade 2 – 6 teachers, while Cindy did the same with K – 1), focusing on challenges facing teachers. We identified three from the morning session:

- the writing of detailed lesson plans for all lessons, a week in advance, which are demanded by the inspectors

- teachers not teaching phys ed, because it isn’t an evaluated subject, and often they have no playing field to use

- not all teachers have the syllabus in their schools

It took a bit of talking on our part and encouragement at first, but finally they aired their concerns and added:

- the difficulty of teaching ICT with 1 computer per school (that may or may not work), lack of internet access, power outages, teaching from a manual

- access to clean water for washing up or drinking (some schools have to carry their water from a well)

- shortage of space (schools are built with one room per grade but don't seem to account for kindergarten which has to be housed some where)

- multi-level classrooms, not really a combined class, but two classes with two teachers in one room

- no playing field suitable for sports or track

- teacher housing (in remote areas some teachers have to live on site, but may or may not want to, or there is no housing provided and they have to commute a long way)

- textbook and resource shortages

- inflexible rules of inspection, which happens once a week and the role of the inspector who decides on teacher promotions

- chain of command – top down model and if you question things “you are digging your own grave” as one person put it

We tried to focus on something that we thought we might be able to give some advice on, so we talked about the rules of inspection and the chain of command. We heard loud and clear about how teachers are not supported by their head teacher and are often denigrated by the inspectors because they aren't on the right lesson based on the date or that inspectors tell them they are doing the wrong thing for whatever reasons. For example one teacher said he had a few grade five students who didn't know the alphabet so he went back to review and was told that wasn't his job, he had to continue on.

In the end we concluded that talking about common problems was a good start and that the change needs to come from the bottom, so teachers need to be vocal and proactive in order to get anything changed. We stated too that maybe the inspectors need to be updated in order to look for indicators of the new teaching methods that GNAT is promoting. As usual Peter Mandaba, from the Pan African Teachers Association concluded it quite eloquently.

Today lunch was different. Ernest lead us to the dining area and we were all seated at a table and our meal was different from the teachers. We had grilled chicken pieces, rice with the delicious sauce, plantain and fruit – watermelon and pineapple. Some of us felt badly that we were being fed better than the participants, but I guess it came down to they were used to their food and we weren't. The union wants us to be comfortable, well fed and to not get sick.

After lunch we gave the participants a CTF survey to complete. Then Barb, Cindy and Salamate lead a workshop on the five components of reading. It rained for the first time this afternoon.

I went and watched Cameron's group present about classroom management and then mentoring. When the sessions ended we headed back to the hotel for a quick turnaround before the evening session. I had a quick cool down swim and then a shower and then joined the rest for dinner. I had some of Lyle's shrimp pasta and a piece of Angela's veggie pizza. Then Lyle, Angela, Owen and I headed off back to the school for a session on HIV/AIDS and water borne diseases. When we got there we were told that it had been cancelled and we headed back for a nightcap by the bar before retiring.