Model School

I came to The Gambia as an education volunteer and as part of the training for the education volunteers we had a week of model school at a school in our training school.  This school was an upper basic school which had grades 5 through 8th.  The students were from that that school but since it was summer vacation, the Peace Corps paid them 10 Dalasi a day to incent them to attend.  The current exchange rate is about 30 dalasi to the dollar so not a huge amount.  However my monthly salary is a little over $200.00 and I am relatively well paid in Gambian terms.  So 50 dalasi is an incentive and attendance was very good.  My host sister, Roxy, was one of the students and her family let her keep the money.  

I was scheduled to teach 3 computer classes to the eighth grade.  The first day was basic and we went through keyboard, mouse, cpu, and monitor and did a drill on connecting them all since they had never done this.  The next day we passed out keyboards to the class and had them compete to type the characters first.  They were good at hunting and pecking but they were not aware of how to use the shift keys and typing special characters.  Finally on the third day we went to the  computer lab.  In order to make it easier for the PCTs to teach, the Peace Corps lent a large generator to the school.  With this generator we were able to have 10 computers up and running for 27 students.  Normally they depend on solar power and can only power 4 computers at a time.  The classroom is beastly hot, and full of dust and dirt, but these kids love to use the computers, even if there are 3 or more sharing one computer.  Here is a picture of us in action.  I am the gorgeous one in the pink and turquoise.  The guy in the foreground is a PCV who has been here about a year.  BTW, if you hadn't figured it out, they wear uniforms to school.

Unfortunately at the time of model school a nasty bug was circulating among the Peace Corps trainees.  People were dropping like flies, so I ended up teaching 3 more computer classes to cover for sick people.  The computers had Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing on them so that was my lesson plan. After always doing hunt and peck it was tough for them but some of them were really trying while others discovered the games section in Mavis.  Kids are kids wherever they are.

The very last day was graduation day so I helped with the eighth grade class since I was officially an eighth grade teacher.  The pictures below show the other eighth grade teachers and our classroom which was typical.  There are no windows, just decorative holes in the wall that allow in air, light, and dust.  Note the floor in the picture, I think there is concrete under there but the dust and dirt won the war a long time ago.  Also note the ceiling made of corrugated metal.  It is an extremely common building material here. I had visions of thatched roofs but the  majority are corrugate in this country.  The other education volunteers were pretty innovative in the materials they created for teaching -- I have to hand it to them.  The class voted to sing songs for their graduation presentation which they did.  But one of the students, who was the head boy for the school, said they had put together a drama for the graduation.  The other 8th grade teacher told them they could not do it, but during the ceremony they got up and performed it anyway.  What a hoot!  Some were playing bad boys and girls who went to the beach instead of school and tried to tempt the others into going to the beach.  Their entertainment value was way beyond any other act and their message was of course to stay in school.  I am not sure what the staff felt about it, but it definitely beat the songs that they sang.  

The amazing thing about the students here is that, from the time they start school, all classes are taught in English.  Can you imagine growing up speaking a language and then when you start school all of your teachers speak another language.  I guess they are in an English immersion program.  It is quite possible that their teacher cannot even speak the language that the children speak at home since there are so many tribal languages in the country.