School Daze

Teaching at Cidi Ndiaye has been pretty fun overall. Last Monday was particularly excellent because only half the kids showed up as it was the day before, the day before Tabaski (makes sense, right?). The class sizes are usually around 50, so between my teaching partner Krista and I, one usually does crowd control while the other teaches. With half the kids, I was able to go around and actually converse with individuals, and not just a mass of kids. It was great! They were trying really hard to do the "Hello My Name is..." and "I am ten years old" and whenever someone faltered, the kid next to them would usually try and coach them along.

We teach 2 age groups: 8 year olds and 9-11 year olds. The classes are mostly divided up by age but some older kids are put in younger classes because they are struggling academically. Our two classes of 8 year old are usually a complete gong show. The first week, during the first class, the teacher stepped out for the entire class and pretty much we had kids swinging from the rafters and screaming like animals. All Krista and I could do was laugh at each other and at how wrong the situation was. When the teacher came back in, she marched over to me with a rubber strap and said something to the effect of "this is how you keep order in the class room". Now, this may be true for her, but not so much for me. I don't think the teachers out and out beat the kids with the strap, but every class room has one, and the teachers use them to hit the desks, and their hands to hit the kids, as I have seen on a couple of occasions. We even had it where these 3 boys were being so bad all throughout the class, and after we were reprimanding him he said "No, you have to hit us to get us to behave!"

I always think back to the lady from the kindergarden who kept order with 50 little 4year olds at the mere drop of a line. "Mes amis, mes amis!" My friends, my friends! Somehow she has figured out how to keep everyone focused without so much intimidation. Even in my own house the kids get smacked if they do something wrong. Then watching the kids later, they hit each other like crazy. Even the babies will try to smack someone when they get frustrated. In the classroom there are posters about proper mosquito net use for malaria prevention, abuse against women posters, and even one poster to the effect of "Let students learn without getting the beats". Its a good message really.

I have heard many stories from other volunteers about kids in their houses getting whipped, kids in hospital getting hit for crying too much, talibe boys showing up with major whip marks from the maribouts... it's really hard to know what to do about it. I know for myself merely saying (to the rubber strap) "Oh I would really prefer not to use that I don't think it's a good thing" seems trite, but one can only hope that by taking a stance against something, others will at least consider that there's another, less harsh way of doing things.

Otherwise another highlight for teaching in a classroom that is on the first floor is being able to buy coffee through the window. The other day, this tall man came up to the window and stood there staring at us while we were reviewing colours. The teacher took notice and I was sure she was going to yell at him or give him the beats with her plastic pipe, but no, she starting talking nicely in Wolof and went over to her purse. "Tu veux du cafe?" she asked us. The guy was going around the building selling Touba coffee to the teachers! Sadly I find Touba coffee to be really, really sweet and un coffee-like so I passed.