A Full-Fledged PC Volunteer

Whew…two weeks of teaching in Tanzania down, only something like 80 weeks of teaching to go. I feel like a legitimate Peace Corps volunteer now that I have actually started my job and am earning my keep (I think it comes to about 80 cents an hour). I can tell that my time in Tanzania is going to be over before I know it.

I am the physics teacher at Songea Girls Secondary School. I have about 20 Form V students and 25 Form VI students from all over the country ranging in age from 17 to 21. Not a bad student/teacher ratio. I teach each of the two classes for 80 minutes every day (M-F), so I really have to stay on my toes throughout the week.

One of the most difficult things about teaching in Tanzania is that we do not have class text books from which to work. The school has a small collection of physics textbooks that are leant out to the students, but it is a combination of many different authors and there are not enough books for everyone. So I can’t ask my students to read chapter 10, or do problems 1-15 in the book. I am their only reliable source of information and everything has to be written down by hand. At least I have some good physics textbooks to consult.

Actually in the physics laboratory store room I did find a set of second-hand physics books from the United Kingdom. They were written in 1940 and republished in 1965. I took a book off the shelf and opened the cover to find the typical list naming the British students who had been issued the book and the condition of the book at the time. By 1973 under the ‘condition’ column the student had written, “Too old to survive.” Yet here in the year 2009 in Tanzania it is the best classroom set of physics books I’ve got.

Another difficulty I face in Tanzania is that I am expected to teach to the national exam that my students take upon completion of Form VI. My current Form VI students will be taking the national exams starting February 9th. In Tanzania there is a national exam after primary school, another after Form IV of secondary school (Ordinary level) and another after Form VI (Advanced level). In order to advance to each following level of study, students must pass the national exam. Although students are given grades by their teachers, the only thing that matters in order to get into secondary schools or universities is the national exam score.

The students must pass two of their three primary subjects in order to get into a university. Above 55% is a passing grade. From looking at past Form VI exams, to get even 50% seems remarkable. The exam covers two years worth of material and the students are expected to have memorized every equation they need to use on the test. But a list of constants is magnanimously provided on the front of each exam, ‘Pie, π: 3.1415’ among them.

As a result of this system, I feel a lot of pressure to make sure I cover every topic and every equation that might appear on the national exam at the expense of going in depth into interesting topics, or spending time working on general critical thinking and problem solving skills. I am finding that it is impossible to cover the entire syllabus, so before I start the new term in April, I will want to go through and prioritize the topics.

I spent my first day of class just introducing myself to the students and having them introduce themselves to me. They were incredibly bashful about speaking to me in front of the class, even just their name and where they are from. Every time I ask any of them a question I have to tell them to speak up. I think a little practice in public speaking will be good for them. Now finally after two weeks at least my Form V class has started speaking audibly. I really like my Form V class and am looking forward to teaching them next year. My Form VI girls seem to be burnt out and I am afraid they have given up on passing the physics national exam.

Right now I am teaching my Form V girls about heat, including how different thermometers work (don’t remember ever learning that in college), black body radiation and the laws of thermodynamics. For Form VI, I have had to brush up on my quantum and nuclear physics. The Form V and Form VI Tanzanian physics curriculum contains all the topics I studied in college physics classes (and some I didn’t) but just not as in depth and without rigorous math to support it. Also the Tanzanian syllabus orders the topics in more of a historical progression rather than the mathematical and subject matter progression of American physics curriculum. As a result the topics are in a completely different order than how they appear in American physics textbooks.

The first two weeks have been exhausting, but I am starting to build up some endurance for preparing lectures and speaking in front of classes every day. On Friday of my first week I had to dash out of school just after my last period to meet the US ambassador to Tanzania for lunch. He was making his first visit (and final visit since he is out as the new Obama administration is sworn in this week) to Songea to meet local officials and check in on US financed projects in the region. He invited all of the Peace Corps volunteers in the region to join his party for lunch, but I was the only volunteer around since everyone else had been gone for the holidays. Ambassador Green and the three others with him from the embassy were really nice. His daughter who was in Tanzania for winter break from college had come along to Songea too. I had a very enjoyable time.

Then on Saturday the other PCVs started trickling back into the Ruvuma region. Songea is a long way from anywhere, so my house is a pit stop for the other volunteers in my region on their way home. It was nice to see Greg, Matt and Dawn again and be reminded that I am not the only PCV in Ruvuma. Fortunately last Monday was a public holiday, so I had an extra day to catch my breath before charging into week number two. Then this weekend Jenna returned to the region and so we had another Ruvuma PCV gathering at my house. Jenna even brought me a package that had gotten stuck in Dar es Salaam that my parents sent me at the beginning of November!

I just collected my first sets of homework and marked it this weekend. It seems that my students understand me for the most part. So I guess I’ll keep pushing on. The coming week will be short because the Form VI students are celebrating graduation on Thursday. It is strange to me that the Tanzanian students ‘graduate’ before they have taken their final exams. I am looking forward to experiencing what a Tanzanian graduation ceremony entails.
It has been impossible to find out what exactly the schedule is for graduation. I guess it will take place roughly between 10 am and 3 pm on Thursday. The students have been doing a lot of work to clean and prepare the school grounds for the ceremony, so who knows if there will actually be any time to hold classes this week. I guess I am on some committee to oversee the entertainment that the students are preparing for the ceremony, but the committee meeting was held last week while I was teaching a class, and no one bothered to tell me about it until after it was over anyway, so I don’t know what I am supposed to do for that.

Tanzania is keeping me flexible alright. I had planned to be teaching for 4 more weeks before my form V students take their finals, but today I learned that finals have been moved up a week and a half. With graduation eating up all of this week, I only have 2 more weeks of teaching (maybe there are even a couple of public holidays in there that I don’t yet know about). I’m finding that the Tanzanian school schedule is subject to change on a moment’s notice. In this case I think moving the end of the term ahead was necessary because the government has not been providing the funds we need in order to feed our students. Our headmistress is doing her best to buy food on credit and keep the school open as long as possible.

Well, I’ve got to go prepare lessons for the week. I never imagined I would be teaching quantum physics and the laws of thermodynamics in Tanzania. But it is a pretty awesome experience!