Technology-less

I spent the last two days of school with almost no sleep, writing out 42 report cards, under candlelight, for the first term marks for Class III.  I never fully understood the blessing of technology until now.  In the U.S School system, you do not have to calculate your students’ marks by hand, the computer will do everything for you.  You can enter their attendance on the computer instead of by hand.  Technology of course has its downfalls too, but looking at it from this perspective, it could make the school system here much more efficient and effective. 

I have made a template on Microsoft Excel where the teachers can enter  their marks for all 13 of the subjects for each student for each exam.  I am now working on teaching a few of them how to enter their marks and enter the formulas to calculate the total and average marks for each exam.  If we can master this, it could save them so much time and effort.  It will take time to learn the computer, seeing as many of the teachers have not even touched a computer before but it will come with time if they are persistent with it. 

One system in the schools that I have yet to wrap my mind around is ranking the students.  I literally sat down and gave each of them a number 1 through 42 depending on their overall average mark from their two exams for the term.  This is an extremely big deal to parents, to the point where parents will pay the teacher to change the marks so they can get a higher ranking.  I refused money from several parents already.  It does not matter so much what their marks are but what matters is their rank.  I have been thinking and comparing it to the U.S system and in a sense we do something similar but it is more individualized.  We rank ourselves using letter grades purely on an external scale, not based on the marks of other students.  Here, the ranking is purely based on the performance of the rest of the class and the marks are broadcast to the whole class.  By the end of the day, the whole school knows who came in what position.  When I met with the parents at the end of the term, I tried to stress that no matter what rank the students got, they still need to keep working hard and they need to try their best. 

At the end of the term, we had a Teachers’ Appreciation Day where the parents gave gifts to their teachers and to the staff as a whole.  One tribe in Sierra Leone is the Fula people who are known to be very good business men.  Cattle are their specialty so one father gave the CRC staff a cow to express his appreciation.  It was a small cow, so after debating long and hard about whether to kill it now or wait, we killed it.  I got to witness the event and then I got to cook the beef myself!  It was the best beef I have ever tasted.  We were also given the liver which in my opinion is the last part I want to eat.  But here, the liver is seen as the best part.  I am fully enjoying all the fresh meat we have been able to get in Kabala.  However, I have not quite yet learned how to enjoy preparing or eating the intestine, heart, and other parts of the cow and chicken.

During our Teachers’ Appreciation Day, each of the classes had to do a performance for the parents.  Krissi and I decided to choreograph a dance to a gospel song by Kirk Franklin.  We had wanted to do it with some of the other teachers but they all gave up after they saw how much work it would be.  We ended up recruiting two of Krissi’s older students to help us out.  We were able to pull off a good dance two days before the program.  And we managed to break another stereotype that white people cannot dance.  The parents got really into it.  I think my confidence in my dancing skills was boosted after my students all came up to me and said “Miss. K you sabe dance!” or “Miss. K you know how to dance!” 

I got the opportunity to go to a village one weekend with a friend on his motorbike.  What a beautiful country this is.  We first stopped at his Mother’s village then went on to his Grandmother’s village.  Unfortunately, I cannot do much more than greet in the village because almost no Krio is spoken.  Most people will speak Koronko which is the most common tribe around Kabala.  Even though communication was difficult, the family was extremely generous to me.  By the time we left the village, I was carrying three chickens, two big bags of rice, two papayas, and a pineapple.  Unfortunately one of my chickens escaped, but the other two are still healthy and when they are nice and big we will eat them.

 Yesterday, I decided to plait (braid) my hair in Freetown so I spent all afternoon having my head pulled in all directions.  It was extremely painful but I think it has been worth it in the end.  Hopefully I will be able to get pictures posted when I am in Ghana if the internet is a little faster.  Anyways, sorry this is quite a long blog and props to you if you made it to the end but I have so much to say.  I am currently in Freetown and will be flying out to Ghana early Thursday morning to spend Christmas with a friend from Calvin College.  I have been told that it will be wonderful to get a small glimpse of live back home in Ghana.  I think the thing I am looking forward to most is having light!  I am extremely excited for a break from teaching but I know in a few weeks, I will be excited and ready to get back at it.