Educate Boys and Girls and You Develop a Nation...

July 14, 2011

Though most every day in Burkina seems to bring about some new adventure or a crazy story, today in particular was AWESOME.  Such a special day.  First of all, to start out the day bright and early at 6am, I did my laundry -- all by myself!  Using a bucket and soap, just like all the locals do, since there are no washing machines!  After 30 minutes, my hands were really tired from all the scrubbing…and I had only finished 3 shirts and a skirt…with a whole bag full of dirty clothes to go.  I thought I did a pretty decent job, for it only being my first time doing laundry in Africa (my host mom has done my laundry a couple times for me while I’m at class).  But apparently my laundry skills weren’t as decent as I thought.  Everything I “washed” was carefully examined by my host mom, and except for a few articles of clothing, my host mom rewashed everything before hanging it on the line to dry.  But at least they’re clean.  Hopefully next week’s attempt at doing laundry (by myself) will be more successful.  But if not, no worries.  Most of the current Peace Corps Volunteers we’ve met so far say that they never do their own laundry – they just pay one of their neighbors to do it and the clothes end up a lot cleaner this way, too, than if we’d try to wash our own clothes. 

By 7:30am, I finished my laundry and was on my way to class.  Except today, I wasn’t the student.  I was the teacher.  Well, for 15 minutes, anyways.  We had what is called “Model School.”  Essentially there was a bunch of local kids organized by age/class, and each Peace Corps Trainee taught a 15 minute lesson – in FRENCH!   Yes, I spoke French while teaching.  Good French?  Nope, not at all.  But despite my horrible pronunciation and lack of French vocabulary, I still was able to get my points across and it seemed like the kids had fun.  My lesson was for 5e Mathematics (i.e. the American equivalent of about 6^th grade) and I had prepared a lesson on the topic of comparing the sizes of fractions (i.e 1/3 vs. 1/4).   There were 8 students in my class, and though they were very timid at first, after a few minutes I got them talking and participating.  My previous experience as a teacher definitely came in handy.  While other volunteers were nervous about having to speak in French AND stand in front of a group of kids, I only had to worry about my French skills.  Everyone said they really enjoyed watching me teach, because I “actually look and act like a real teacher.”  Good.  I should act like a real teacher…cuz I am…or at least spent over 4 years in college preparing/studying to be one.  While some of my friends stared awkwardly at the kids and did that all-too-common nervous laugh thing after asking a question and having no students immediately respond within 2-3 seconds, and so then they moved on to the next question, I just stared right back at the kids and let there be that awkward silence…until someone answered my question.  Or else I would actually point to a kid and make him give me an answer.  It worked.  The kids started answering questions and raising their hand when I asked for volunteers, and somehow – though I don’t know how – they always understood my French and did exactly what I asked them to do!  So overall, I felt successful.  It was nice to be back in front of a class again and this made me really excited to teach here in Burkina.

I’ve been learning a lot about Burkina’s education system, and it’s so different from the US that I had been feeling frustrated and almost as if my teacher skills were going to be useless here.  (The following may be interpreted as being a rant on the education system here, but it's nothing against Burkina -- I have many of the exact same sentiments about America's education system as well...)  I mean, how do you effectively teach a class when there are no textbooks, there’s over 100+ students shoved in a classroom that’s half the size of classrooms in America (so it’s difficult for the students to easily get out of the chair and go to the chalkboard, and nearly impossible for them to get into groups or move about the room), and there’s only a tiny “blackboard” (aka a piece of wood that’s painted black) with chalk so fragile it constantly breaks into pieces whenever you attempt to write with it?  But after today, I now know that my “American” style of teaching can still be implemented, though I will have to make a lot of adjustments to better fit Burkinabe culture.  There are tons of opportunities for me to share my teaching and pedagogy knowledge with Burkinabe teachers, in terms of helping them develop effective lesson plans that aren’t purely lecture-based and include critical thinking and other activities for students besides listening to the teacher lecture and copying down information from the blackboard.  But unfortunately, the math books that I’ll be making my curriculum off of are 20 years old and based more or less on meeting the French system’s education requirements, and so applying them to kids in Burkina and actually making the material relevant could be a challenge.  There’s also not much emphasis here on encouraging creativity or using different methods to solve problems.  In addition, the attitude of “Well, that information is taught in 5e, and if the student didn’t learn in then, too bad,” is quite common.  Students are expected to know (and memorize) everything that is presented to them within each class year and then use it in their subsequent education years, although that specific information from 5e or 6e (or whichever grade) will not be retaught or even briefly reviewed within the curriculum…unless the teacher takes the time to review information before presenting the related new material. So, to summarize, there’s a lot I can work with and attempt to improve within Burkina’s school systems.

Here’s a rundown of the basic school system set up in Burkina Faso, along with the coordinating American grade so you can have a better idea of what I’m talking about (although you’ll still probably be quite confused):

[Preschool/Early Childhood]

**Not common – only available in some bigger cities.  Nor are early childhood programs funded, so only “rich” parents can afford to have their kids go to preschool.

Elementary School = L’ecole (Primary School)

Kindergarten = CP1

Grade 1 = CP2

Grade 2 = CM1

Grade 3 = CM2

Grade 4 = CE1

Grade 5 = CE2

**Students take the CEP exam (must pass this test to advance to middle school)

Middle School = College (Secondary School: First Cycle)

Grade 6 = 6^e

Grade 7 = 5^e

Grade 8 = 4^e

Grade 9 = 3^e

**Students take the BEPC - Brevet d'études du premier cycle (must pass this test to advance to high school)

High School = Lycee (Secondary School: Second Cycle)

Grade 10 = 2^e

Grade 11 = 1^e

Grade 12 = Terminale

**Students take the BAC – Baccalaureate exam (must pass this test to advance to l’universitie)

The numerical levels in the French system (and therefore also the Burkinabè system) are in reverse order from the numerical order of grades in American schools. Secondary school starts with Sixième (6^eme) then goes to 5^eme, 4^eme, and 3^eme before the BEPC exam. The second cycle of secondary school starts with Seconde (2^nde), either on the A-track (languages/history/etc.) or the C/D-track (mathematics/sciences), continuing on to Première (1^ere) and Terminale levels before students attempt the BAC exam. Students who pass the BAC are at a somewhat higher academic level than the average American high school graduate.

The number of students advancing to each grade (especially in the middle/high schools) gets smaller and smaller, as students drop out of school.  But this doesn’t mean that these older classes have less students or smaller class sizes.  There are still 60-150 students per class, because of the shortage of teachers able to teach these higher levels, as well as a lack of school buildings.  Sometimes kids need to move to another “nearby” town just to attend a high school, and if this is the case, unless they have family to live with, they need to buy/rent housing, which is unaffordable for most families…and so they drop out of school because there is no school for them to go to…or afford to go to.  Dropping out of school is also due to a variety of other factors:

*not advancing into the next grade or passing the required exams

*illiteracy (French is what’s spoken at school, but at home, a local language is spoken.  So unless the parents are educated, there’s little to no French literacy at home, making it difficult for students to master the French language and effectively read textbooks or exams, as well as for students to get homework help from parents)

*early pregnancy or marriage
*being needed at home to work, cultivate fields or tend animals, or to take care of siblings

*and in general, a lack of importance placed on education coupled with the fact that there’s no jobs here to begin with…so there’s no point in getting a college degree, or even finishing high school, when the majority of jobs available revolve around farming or other trades (like being a tailor or carpenter) that mainly require skills not taught in formal schools.

Thus, a lot of our work within Peace Corps will focus on improving agricultural practices and small business activities, like encouraging the use of record-keeping practices to manage income and expenses. It’s hard to believe, but there are shop-keepers and vendors here who think they are making money just because they are selling things, but in all reality, they are actually losing money with each item they sell because they undercharge and don’t consider expenses.  For example, take the tailor who doesn’t account for the thread he buys to make each dress or the electricity used to run the sewing machine.  He might have tons of business, but without taking these expenses into consideration when charging customers a price, more often than not, he’s only breaking even…and sometimes, not even that.  Education (in school) is important and the key to implementing change in a nation, but almost more importantly, is educating those who aren’t in school – and likewise, preparing those students who are still in school to have good common sense life skills (like managing money and sanitary practices) since they probably won’t go to college, or even finish high school – in hopes that they can still live successfully in good health and pass on these habits and skills to their children, as they’ll probably have at least 3 or 4 or 8 kids.  And thennnnn (hopefully), their children will have the ability and opportunity to attend school regularly -- because they don’t have to sell mangoes on the side of road to get money, since their parents will know how to manage money effectively and not need to depend on child labor to help support the family.  Thus, these are the kids that will advance to college, assuming that by then there will be an abundance of jobs in Burkina for which a college degree will be useful, and thus desirable.

Students who fail a grade can repeat it once, and after that, they need to go to a different school.  It’s not uncommon for students to repeat a class, and this results in there being a huge discrepancy of ages within the same grade, particularly with the middle and high school classes.  For example, a class of 6e students (7^th grade) would ideally be about 12-14 years old, at least in America.  But here, it’s not unusual for there to be 16-year-olds mixed in with 12-year-olds.  And by the time students get to Terminale (the final class before university), there are students ranging from 17 to 25 years old (or older).  Technically, after a certain age, students can’t go to school anymore (public schools), but they just lie about their age and/or change their birth certificates so they still meet the age limit.  Problem solved.