One Year as a Teacher – Successes, Struggles, and Prospects

One Year as a Teacher – Successes, Struggles, and Prospects

I have finished one year of teaching, giving and marking final exams last week!  This blog post highlights my school experience over the last year.

Successes

•           I know the names of 200 some Basotho students, with names like Retsilisitsoe that is pretty good! 
•           I have gone from being an uncomfortable teacher to a pretty good math teacher.
•           We started a IM sports league and workout club that added some excitement to sitting in a classroom from 7 am to 4 pm every day for my students. 
•           My students know how to use a condom, at least on a carrot! 
•           I can write clearly on a chalk board, I mean a wall painted black. 
•           I took three bright students to the national science fair and one of them won second prize!
•           We organized an HIV testing event with the local hospital which tested 180 of my students.
•           Some of my students are improving in maths! And have gotten used to the very low scores for the rest and still have love for them.

Lebeta and Lineo studying maths on a Saturday.

Most of the successes at my school are small and the challenges are maybe bigger.  I think the biggest thing this year is that I have become a part of Qholaqhoe High School and it is the place I know.

 Form D Math Challenge winners eating brownies and mac n cheese for being the most improved in maths!

Struggles

-          Can you pass a trigonometry test without a calculator!?  Many Many of my students don’t have supplies and one of the reasons students fail maths so much here is because they don’t have a calculator, a protractor set, a text book, or often even a pencil. 

-          Can you pass 11^th grade math if you haven’t passed mass since 6^th grade?!  Students only have to pass English and so many other subjects to move on to the next grade and maths is the most failed subject and builds on the previous year.  If you don’t know to work with negative numbers solving equations is impossible.

-          Motivation is a constant struggle with teachers and students.  My students often view school as a place to go to keep them out of trouble not necessarily a place to learn that leads to a future.  Education can get them somewhere but they have to get far, finish high school with high marks and go on to university and very few of them accomplish that.  Even worse is their motivation for maths they know they probably will not pass so why bother!?

With my teachers their motivation is also often very low.  Skipping class, not preparing, and sleeping are common and there aren’t any repercussions for them, they never will be fired.  Things at school are disorganized and we spend enormous amounts of time trying to figure out how to do something that we did the same last year. 

-          I’ve struggled being the only one who wants something to happen, sitting while everyone is yelling around me in Sesotho, watching kids get smacked on the hands and butt for singing in class, and having 5 of 70 students turn in an assignment.

Even so, it is worth it to be here and I am happy to be able to say that I am a teacher!

 Form D Class

 Thaabe finishing board maths problem

Prospects

With one year down and one year two go there are a lot of things yet to work on at Qholaqhoe.

A Library for Qholaqhoe High School

My biggest project is to prepare a PCPP grant for a library building at Qholaqhoe High School.  We have done much of the planning and budgeting thus far and hopefully will finish the grant soon.  The building will be 9 m by 6 m and allow the current small library to be converted to a staff room.  After the grant is finished the objective of raising probably around $7500 from family and friends in the states will start.  There are many places this project could fail and I’m often leery of how much I want this for them compared to how much they want to do it for themselves.  But, we will keep trying and see how it works out!

Along with the library is trying to create a better system for maintaining the books.  I haven’t helped at all this year and just saw how things operated and the books and room are trashed.  Over break we are going to reorganize the books to levels that make more sense to the students and train the school cleaning mme to be the librarian.

Teaching Externals

Next year I will be teaching Form E maths and possibly Form C maths.  These years they take huuuggee end of the year standardized exams to determine if they pass.  The test is worth a lot for their prospects and I will be putting in a lot of effort to try to prepare my students who I had this year in Form D.

With one year down and one year to go it feels like I have been here for 5 minutes and also 5 years.  I am excited for the next year to spend in the place that took a while but now really is my home!

 TAP scholarship students!

Mapaseka ninja jumping over the rope after writing exams!