School!

It’s funny, I’ve been so wrapped up in everything else going on in life that I’ve totally put off writing about the primary reason I was actually sent to Africa in the first place: to teach!  Last week was the first week of classes, and oddly enough, here in Mozambique it is apparently also the least important week of the entire year.

We got warning after warning about how students wouldn’t actually arrive until the second or third, and sometimes fourth week, but it was hard to accept that as truth.  “Why would kids not come to school when it starts?” we thought. “Why would they just not show up even though they know they have to?”

Well, it’s because it’s Mozambique, and here in Mozambique they do things differently.  So, during the first week of classes, when I actually had students show up (my largest class was 8 kids, my smallest was 0), I wasn’t really able to do anything.  If I were to teach something, it would only have to be repeated to those who had falta’ed and decided not to come to school that day, which was a serious majority of the class.  So instead of teaching anything, I decided to just introduce myself, talk about classroom policies and rules, and then play a little math review game.  It all went pretty smoothly, and actually turned out to be a huge language confidence booster. But the game on the other hand, was a much different story. 

If the small sample of the students I was actually able to work with is any sort of accurate representation of my classes universal mathematical abilities, then it’s gonna be long year.  Imagine a group of 12^th graders that are studying advanced principles of physics, chemistry, and biology, yet aren’t able to do simple algebra.  Now imagine that multiplication and division are not strong points either.  Now, imagine that same group can’t even add or subtract numbers very well.  Now you have a better idea of what I was working with.