So Did I Do Anything During 2 Years of Peace Corps? Yeah, Maybe.

Since I still have like 4 months of epic Burkina stories to record, and because most of you probably don't really care anyways, and because I'll soon be home in AMERICALAND (Four days, America! Get ready!  I know I'm ready:  bacon! waffles! chocolate milk! roast beef! homemade ice cream! Christmas cookies! taco salad with doritos chips and too much cheese and sour cream! food in general!).... and because the majority of you still don't have the vaguest idea of what I did during Peace Corps, if anything at all, I have decided to post my "Description of Service" and Final Reports.  Hopefully this will eliminate a lot of the basic, repetitive questions that I'll probably be asked (So did you have electricty?  What did you do for two years?  Did you speak English there?), and instead, you can ask me specific questions, like "How is your library functioning now that you're gone?" and "How, exactly, did you start a preschool in your village?" and more.  And for anyone looking into Peace Corps, specifically PC Burkina Faso, I hope this gives you a better idea of what volunteers can do!    Peace Corps service is what you make of it -- it can be hard and long, or it can be life-changing and full of successful projects!    I'd like to think my service was successful, and I can definitely attest to it being life-changing.  Thank you, Peace Corps and Burkina Faso!

****My DOS (Description of Service).  Basically, this bureau-approved document will be attached to my resume and/or sent to anyone who would like official Peace Corps proof of what I did in Burkina Faso.  (The real paper document is signed and sealed.)  It's a nice, condensed, slightly fancily-worded summary of my life the last 28 months.

  

Description of Peace Corps Service

Elizabeth M. Hauth: 2011-2013

After a competitive application process stressing technical skills, motivation, adaptability, and cross-cultural understanding, Elizabeth Hauth was invited into Peace Corps service.  She was assigned to the Formal Education (Mathematics) program in the West African nation of Burkina Faso.

PRE-SERVICE TRAINING

Ms. Hauth began her training on June 11, 2011 in Saponé, a village located 30km south of the capital, Ouagadougou.  During the intensive 14-week pre-service training, Ms. Hauth lived with a Burkinabe host family in order to enhance her cultural understanding and to facilitate her successful integration into Burkinabe society.  She actively participated in everyday activities within the village community, was fully immersed in language training, and completed practical activities to develop technical skills in the area of formal education, including teaching middle school math to local village children during a four-week model school program.

The contents of the training program included:

·         250 hours of technical instruction in the Burkinabe education system, with strategies to improve school environments and increase the capacities of Burkinabe teachers.

·         120 hours of language instruction in French and Jula

·         17 hours of cross-cultural adaption and integration strategies

·         27 hours of medical training in personal health care and prevention

·         13 hours of safety and security training

·         7 hours of administrative training

SERVICE

Ms. Hauth successfully completed training and was sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer on September 22, 2011. She was assigned to Lanfiera, a small village in the northwestern province of Sourou, roughly 300 km west of Ouagadougou. Although French is the official national language, Jula is the dominant language used for meetings, market transactions, and general conversation in Lanfiera.  In her role as a formal math educator, Ms. Hauth was assigned to the local middle school, where she provided 10 hours of math instruction per week, teaching over 500 students during her two years of service.  She assisted teachers to help foster a more gender-balanced environment for the pupils, organized academic support (tutoring) and extracurricular clubs, and planned health-awareness activities.  She also worked with local primary schools in an effort to promote enrollment and retention of female students, and to improve the scholastic environment for all students and teachers.  Ms. Hauth expanded on her experience as a summer camp counselor in the United States by organizing and facilitating many camps throughout her Peace Corps service, including Camp HEERE and Camp VSA.  Additionally, Ms. Hauth collaborated with a variety of community partners, as well as regional officials (such as the provincial mayor), to establish a local library and cultural center aimed at improving both childhood and adult literacy. 

Ms. Hauth was able to initiate and participate in a variety of activities during her service, including the following:

Primary Activities

Ms. Hauth was the principal math teacher for two classes at the local middle school in her village.  She taught 10 hours of 7^th and 8^th grade math each week (in French) to classrooms of 120 students, with limited resources and classroom materials, totaling 640 hours of instruction and reaching 500 students throughout her service.  She provided individual and small-group tutoring, as well as optional math classes after hours for students who wished to do extra practice problems.  Additionally, she developed a school-wide math curriculum consistent with Burkina Faso’s national education program, including interactive lesson plans, chapter assessments, and standardized cumulative tests to measure student progress from primary school throughout middle school.

Ms. Hauth initiated a community library that provides 12 villages and over 15,000 people access to books, educational materials, preschool programs, preventive health information, and adult literacy classes.  She oversaw the preparation of the building, painted kid-friendly educational murals on the walls, designed resources and games appropriate for young children to increase their school-readiness skills, and trained Burkinabe to serve as librarians.  She wrote grants and received funding surpassing $10,500 to procure the necessary materials for the library and library-initiated projects, addressing HIV/AIDS education, childhood literacy, gender equality, and adolescent life skills.  The library also functions as a cultural center, where different ethnic groups within the community can come together to learn about and share their music, dancing, traditions, language, and stories.

As a literacy advocate, Ms. Hauth worked with her local primary schools to implement, “Literacy through the Arts,” a two-tiered project aimed firstly, at creating small classroom libraries with culturally-friendly and age appropriate books, and secondly, at providing primary school teachers with a workshop to learn new teaching methods and discuss strategies for developing literacy skills in their students.  The schools received 10 copies of each of 10 children’s books, to encourage reading stories as a part of the school curriculum and allow for group work amongst the students.   Workshop content emphasized incorporating arts (such as theater, drawing, free-writing, and singing) into reading lessons, as well as group work and vocabulary games.

Ms. Hauth was the coordinator of several camps for students in her village, most notably Camp HEERE (2012, 2013) – Hygiène, Environnement, Éducation, Récréation, Ensemble! – a weeklong overnight camp for 60 6^th graders, with an emphasis on protecting the environment and supplementary healh, first-aid, nutrition, HIV/AIDS, future planning, and goal-setting components.  She also executed four VSA! camps (Vie, Santé, Avenir! or rather, Life, Health, Future!), which were 3-day-long day camps for 24 5^th grade students to develop life skills, self-confidence, and improved literacy levels.  As a camp coordinator, she created budgets, designed an age-appropriate curriculum, programmed activities, assisted with the writing of camp manuals and worksheets, served as a community liaison, delegated tasks, and evaluated results.  Furthermore, Ms. Hauth participated as a counselor and session facilitator for Camp G²LOW Dedougou (2012, 2013) – Guys and Girls Leading Our World – a 10-day overnight camp for 120 middle school students, focused on gender equality, sexual health, and ending violence.  Ms. Hauth also served as a support resource for 2 weeks of FAVL (Friends of African Village Libraries) summer reading camps, a Burkinabe-initiated project aimed at increasing 5^th graders’ reading comprehension and their understanding of the French language.

Secondary Activities

Ms. Hauth collaborated with school faculty to plan activities for 400 middle school students on World AIDS Day, including 3 hours of learning activity stations and the painting of a “Fight against AIDS” mural.  She also organized several clubs and extra-curriculars at the middle school to expose students to activities they are often excluded from and crucial information they would not receive elsewhere, including Life Skills classes, a girls’ sports group, a music club, volleyball matches, and celebrations to learn about American holidays and culture.

Ms. Hauth completed a community needs assessment and partnered with local establishments to implement projects in: tree planting; income-generating activities for women (tofu, bread, and soap making); and malaria and malnutrition prevention.  She also aided in weekly baby-weighing and vaccinations (record-keeping) at the local clinic.

Ms. Hauth taught private computer lessons, helping community officials and small business owners to become more technology proficient, with instruction in: typing, internet navigation, using email, budgeting with Microsoft Excel, and designing posters, calendars, presentations, charts, and graphs.  She also provided four 5^th grade students (winners of the spelling bee she organized) with a 2-week long introduction to computers.

Other

Ms. Hauth assisted in the Mid-Service Training of 46 Formal and Non-formal Education volunteers.  She helped to plan the training program and presented seminars on creating interactive lesson plans, using the participatory teaching model, and effectively monitoring and evaluating projects.  She provided new volunteers with a wealth of self-created written and digital resources, including: math chapter tests consistent with Burkinabe educational standards; lesson plans and corresponding activities to teach about American holidays and culture; and age-appropriate manuals and worksheets that focus on life skills, malaria prevention, HIV/AIDS, nutrition, future planning, and goal setting.

In addition to her work as a Formal Education volunteer, Ms. Hauth has used her music education training in a multitude of activities.  She has written songs to help her students recall math properties, to teach about the importance of washing hands and having good hygiene, and to encourage politeness and manners.  She composed the Camp HEERE theme song and also performed the U.S. national anthem at various Peace Corps and United States Embassy functions in Ouagadougou.

Ms. Hauth completed her Peace Corps service in Burkina Faso on September 20, 2013.   Though she arrived in country with no prior French skills, at the end of her service, Ms. Hauth tested Advanced-Low in French (according to the Guidelines of the American Council for the Teaching of Foreign languages).

Pursuant to section 5(f) of the Peace Corps Act 22 U.S.C. & 2504 (f) as amended, any former volunteer employed by the United States Government following her Peace Corps Volunteer service is entitled to have any period of satisfactory Peace Corps Volunteer service credited for purposes of retirement, seniority, reduction in force, leave and other privileges based on length of federal government service. Peace Corps service shall not be credited toward completion of the probationary or trial period or completion of any service requirement for career appointment.

This is to certify in accordance with Executive Order No. 11103 of 10 April 1963, that Elizabeth Hauth served satisfactorily as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Her service in Burkina Faso ended on September 20, 2013. She is therefore eligible to be appointed as a career-conditional employee in the competitive civil service on a non-competitive basis. This benefit under the Executive Order entitlement extends for a period of one year after termination of the Volunteer’s service, except that the employing agency may extend that period for up to three years for a former Volunteer who enters military service, pursues studies at a recognized institution of higher learning, or engages in other activities that, in the view of the appointing authority, warrant extension of the period.

________________________________                    __________________________________

Jill Zarchin                                                                  Elizabeth Hauth

Country Director                                                         Volunteer

****My Final Report -- my last document submitted to Peace Corps Burkina Faso, to serve as overview of my projects and time in Burkina Faso, with more specific details about who I worked with, what I did, how I felt, etc. than the DOS.  Pictures included at the end.  Some of this final report is the same as my DOS, as I really like using the "copy" and "paste" controls and saw no reason to reword my project descriptions....and also cuz I procrastinated and this document was written only hours before I got on the plane to Manila.  Whoops.

PEACE CORPS BURKINA FASO

EDUCATION PROJECT

FINAL REPORT

Volunteer's Name: ­­­­­­­­­­­­­  HAUTH Elizabeth

Counterpart Name & Contact: KONE Gueli Jean  226.70.90.05.05

Site:  Lanfiera

Community Integration:

My two years of service in Lanfiera, Burkina Faso have been very successful.  I have participated in a wide variety of projects, both within my project plan, and outside of the formal education project plan.  My language (French skills) has greatly improved since I first arrived in June 2011 without having had any previous French training, and I have even learned some phrases in local languages (Jula and Moore).  I did not have a tutor, though I regret not finding someone to tutor me in French my first year – I think it would have helped a lot to grasp French even quicker.  Most of my free time in village was spent chatting with neighbors, helping them cook, making tea, and going on walks through the village.  I enjoyed getting to know my neighbors, playing with the neighbor children, and circle dancing during holidays and parties.

Primary Project:

Math teacher:   I was the principal math teacher for two classes at the local middle school in my village.  I taught 10 hours of 6e and 5e grade math each week to classrooms of over 120 students, with limited resources and classroom materials, totaling 640 hours of instruction and reaching 500 students throughout my service.  I also provided individual and small-group tutoring, as well as optional math classes after hours for students who wished to do extra practice problems.  Additionally, I worked with my homologue to develop a school-wide math curriculum consistent with Burkina Faso’s national education program, including interactive lesson plans, chapter assessments, and standardized cumulative tests to measure student progress from primary school throughout middle school.

Secondary Projects: 

Community Library:  With the help of my community, homologues, and sitemate, I  initiated a community library that now provides 12 villages and over 15,000 people access to books, educational materials, preschool programs, preventive health information, and adult literacy classes.  I oversaw the preparation of the building, painted kid-friendly educational murals on the walls, designed resources and games appropriate for young children to increase their school-readiness skills, and trained Burkinabe to serve as librarians.  The library also functions as a cultural center, where different ethnic groups within the community can come together to learn about and share their music, dancing, traditions, language, and stories.  For example, one night a “talent show” was held with students presenting different traditional dances, songs, and skits.

Literacy Through the Arts:  As a literacy advocate, I worked with my local primary schools to implement, “Literacy through the Arts,” a two-tiered project aimed firstly, at creating small classroom libraries with culturally-friendly and age appropriate books, and secondly, at providing primary school teachers with a workshop to learn new teaching methods and discuss strategies for developing literacy skills in their students.  The schools received 10 copies of each of 10 children’s books, to encourage reading stories as a part of the school curriculum and allow for group work amongst the students.   Workshop content emphasized incorporating arts (such as theater, drawing, free-writing, and singing) into reading lessons, as well as group work and vocabulary games.

Camps:  I  was the coordinator of several camps for primary school students in my village, most notably Camp HEERE (2012, 2013) – Hygiène, Environnement, Éducation, Récréation, Ensemble! – a weeklong overnight camp for 60 6^th graders, with an emphasis on protecting the environment and supplementary healh, first-aid, nutrition, HIV/AIDS, future planning, and goal-setting components.  I also executed four VSA! camps (Vie, Santé, Avenir! or rather, Life, Health, Future!), which were 3-day-long day camps for 24 5^th grade students to develop life skills, self-confidence, and improved literacy levels.  As a camp coordinator, I created budgets, designed an age-appropriate curriculum, programmed activities, assisted with the writing of camp manuals and worksheets, served as a community liaison, delegated tasks, and evaluated results.  Furthermore, I  participated as a counselor and session facilitator for Camp G²LOW Dedougou (2012, 2013) – Guys and Girls Leading Our World – a 10-day overnight camp for 120 middle school students, focused on gender equality, sexual health, and ending violence.  I also served as a support resource for 2 weeks of FAVL (Friends of African Village Libraries) summer reading camps, a Burkinabe-initiated project aimed at increasing 5^th graders’ reading comprehension and their understanding of the French language.

Projects in Process: CLE Entreprise (Centre de Lecture et d’Eveil)

As CLE (the library) started to function, it was realized that CLE would need a consistent source of income to provide basic materials (such as chalk) and pay for needs, like the guardian and electricity.  We wanted CLE to be independent from the local government, NGO’s, and schools, in order to best serve the entire community and not have fear that a financial supporter would “fall through” and leave the library unable to support its basic operations.  Thus, IGAs were set up with profits going to the library.

Preschool:  The preschool is being held at the library during hours when the library is not utilized, specifically: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons from 15:00-18:00.  During these hours, children and teachers are at school, and many other people (i.e. functionaires) are at jobs also.  The library is thus not used.  Parents registered their preschool children for one afternoon a week, creating four different groups of 30 children each group.  Each time the child comes, he must wear his nametag (which includes the parents' names and cell phone numbers on the back), the parent must sign the child in, and 100 CFA must be deposited for the day.  By requiring this small fee, the preschool teacher is able to be paid each day, and some money is able to be saved for the library and buying new supplies.  Also, an official “formal” preschool is being held in the mornings, from 8am to noon.  Children in this preschool attend 4 days a week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday), wear a uniform, eat a snack, and pay a fee of 40.000 CFA for the year.

Kiosque:  A kiosque was established right next to CLE.  Here, sandwiches, Nescafe, tea, omelets, bread, and more can be bought.  Also, a daily newspaper from Ouaga has been commanded, and so customers can read the paper when they come for their breakfast or lunch.  Because of the kiosque’s immediate popularity, rice and spaghetti have also been added to the menu, as well as cigarettes and alcohol, both of which have a very high profit margin (compared to food).  Furthermore, Salimata, the young lady managing the kiosque, has now learned to make tofu.

Village Bread Bakery:   A village bread bakery was created in order to have a fresh bread source and supply the kiosque with bread for its sandwiches.  Also, despite Guiedougou/Lanfiera being quite big, there was no one who made bread.  All bread comes from Tougan, 42 kilometers away.  CLE’s guardian had worked in a village bread operation when he was younger, and so he was able to gain another job with CLE as the baker.

Night Class:  Every evening, Monday through Friday, CLE holds night classes for adults who never finished (or attended) primary school.  A local primary school teacher is teaching the class, with a small monetary benefit provided by the participants.  Each participant pays 1.000 CFA per month, and half goes to the teacher and the other half goes to CLE to help pay for electricity and other expenses.

Women’s Jula Class:  Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday mornings, 30 women meet at the library to learn how to read and write Jula.  Like the night classes, each woman contributes 1.000 CFA per month, and half goes to pay the teacher and the half is for the library.

Garden:  Yet another IGA for CLE includes a library.  Because CLE is fenced-in, it is protected from animals and thus is a safe spot to have a garden.  This past rainy season, cucumbers and squash were grown and sold in the local marché.  Some of the produce also goes to the kiosque to put on sandwiches or in the vegetable sauce over rice.

Grants/Funding:

Please see the attachment below, which explains the four grants I wrote with my sitemate, Molly Morrison, along with photos of the projects.

Site Replacement:

I am both excited and relieved to know that a health volunteer will be coming to Lanfiera in December 2013 – just a few months after I COS.  The staff at the CSPS are wonderful, and were some of my first friends in village.  They’ve donated their time to help facilitate health sensibilisations and work at Camp HEERE, and they’ve also given their time to just hang out with me, braid my hair, make me delicious food, and practice speaking French (while they practiced English).  The house should be ready to go and in good shape, and everyone in the community has been informed for several months before my departure, that more than likely a new American would be coming in December and would be living in my house. 

On the other hand, I am very disappointed that Molly’s site seems to have been overlooked.  We have spent so much time and energy into making the library a possibility, that it’s frustrating to know that there is no one to help the library association through its first year of operations, in terms of monitoring and evaluation.  Hopefully the future health volunteer in Lanfiera will get involved with the library, but it’s still not the same as having a volunteer specifically assigned to the library.

****Attachment: Grant Write-ups and Photos

Projects and Grants by Elizabeth Hauth and Molly Morrison

Throughout our two years of Peace Corps service in Burkina Faso, my sitemate (Molly) and I have focused on improving literacy within our community.  This was done by working with village counterparts to create a community library, holding numerous reading camps for elementary students, incorporating books into heath formations, training teachers and introducing new teaching techniques, and more.  We requested and received funding for four separate literacy-related projects, and all of our activities easily fall under one (if not more) of our projects:

Literacy Through the Arts….PCPP

Community Library…..PCPP

Early Childhood Education (at the library)….SPA-GAD

Health Awareness Campaign (at the library)….SPA-HIV/AIDS

To date, Molly and I have organized and participated in the following activities: three 3-day reading camps; four 1-day reading camps; an America Day; women’s Jula classes; preschool activities; teacher workshops; co-teaching literacy lessons; health campaigns for women and youth (infant malnutrition, hygiene, food safety, HIV/AIDS, family planning, puberty, sexual health, malaria, dental care, and first-aid); two 4-day overnight camps focused on the environment and goal-setting; and probably a few more things that we’re forgetting to mention.

The following pictures are just a few of the many highlights from our projects -- those rare but special moments captured by camera.  If you would like to see more pictures or to have further details about any specific picture or story, I’d be happy to send more photos and stories your way.  Also, if you would like the actual photo file (jpeg), I can try to email that to you also (providing the Burkinabe internet cooperates); please let me know which photos specifically to email. (It will take me anywhere from 5-20 minutes to upload each photo.)

Literacy Through the Arts (LTA)….PCPP

Literacy Through the Arts (LTA) was a project designed to provide each of three local elementary schools with a set of age-appropriate picture books and basic “Literacy through the Arts” materials (i.e. some arts and crafts supplies, like paper and crayons).  It was accompanied by a teacher workshop for the schools’ teachers and directors.  LTA provided students with improved learning opportunities to develop reading and critical thinking skills; at the same time it strengthened the capacity of teachers to successfully and creatively teach literacy.  This project addressed many of the community’s concerns, including: improving schools and children’s education; learning how to read; increasing access to books; incorporating health, hygiene, and other basic life skills into school curriculum; and training teachers.

The official LTA teacher training was held on June 20, 2013, with 19 teachers from several nearby schools and 3 school directors participating.  However, co-teaching, pedagogical discussions, lesson sharing, and reading camps had been happening since December 2012 with some of the participants.

On March 6, I was able to spend the day with Zephirin Gouabe’s first grade class.  His classroom is the only classroom at this school, located in a small remote island village 6km from my own village.   (All older children must travel to another nearby village to continue with second grade.)  Gouabe’s school is literally just a hangar, with the walls and roof all made out of straw, and only a small piece of wood painted green to serve a chalkboard at the front of the shack.  Gouabe participated in the LTA workshops and pedagogy discussions I organized with local primary school teachers, and was immediately willing to start incorporating some new ideas into his lessons.  These pictures capture his class drawing – a complimentary arts activity to reinforce (and also evaluate) their reading comprehension.  Gouabe had read a short story aloud, translating the story’s French into Dioula (the students’ mother tongue).  We then asked the students to draw a picture of something that had happened in the story.  For many, if not all, of the students, it was their first time drawing with crayons and they had a blast choosing what colors to use on their clean, half sheet of white paper.  As the students drew, Gouabe and I walked around and asked the students about their pictures and their reason for drawing it.  Gouabe also took the time to go around and write each of the 40 students’ names on their papers, as the children had not yet learned how to write their names.

Other Literacy Through the Arts activities captured on camera include using music to practice saying new vocabulary words (above left), discussing the lyrics of a song about good hygiene practices (above right), and organizing desks in clusters to facilitate group work.  The photo below (left) is of PCV Careth Davis in her village’s primary school; Toumbila is 10km from my village and two teachers from Toumbila participated in the project.

Yet another teaching technique introduced was group reading (above right).  Students, in partners or small groups, read a story together aloud, with a copy of the book for each student (or pair of students).  This allows everyone to follow along with the words and pay attention to their spellings, to look closely at the pictures, and to help each other with pronunciation.  This is extremely important when learning to read in any language, but especially in French, where many words are pronounced the same, whether masculine or feminine, singular or plural, or even just entirely different words altogether.  For example, eau (water) and au (to the, singular) and aux (to the, plural) are all pronounced the exact same way.  How confusing, especially for a child who rarely, if ever, visually sees the words they are hearing and speaking!

Community Library…..PCPP

The Literacy Through the Arts (LTA) project was accompanied (and enhanced) by the development of a community library.  When LTA was in its initial stages of being planned and discussed, there was no library, or even the idea of creating a library – creating a community library seemed unfeasible and much too large of a project to take on, and that was precisely why LTA was started.  LTA gave school teachers and students access to a small set of books to be used in the classroom.  But, as teachers grew more and more interested about LTA and children’s books, the desire to have a library was expressed.  This sparked community interest, and before we knew it, plans for a REAL library to be used by the entire community were formed, a library association was created, grant requests were written and funded, and a library was started! 

It’s been a lot of work, but the library is now open for business!  It’s been the perfect venue to conduct LTA activities and reading camps for students, along with many other things. (Please see attached “Thank you for library” file for more specific information about the library, i.e. its name and operations.  This was the letter that was recently sent to our donors, friends, and family.) 

above left: Reading camp for 3^rd graders.  They are reading a “Bouba and Zaza” story about the importance of washing hands and having good hygiene. above right:  Reading camp for 5^th graders.  I’m reading a pop-up book about ocean animals.  They absolutely LOVE pop-up books because the images jump out at them.  During this particular book, the students were fascinated by the idea that not everything that lives in the ocean goes by the name “fish.”  We learned a lot of new things that day! bottom left: PCV Molly Morrison (my sitemate) explaining the meaning of “pollution” to a small group.  They had never heard or seen that word before. bottom right: “Whoa!  Hippos!”  The kids always get really excited when they recognize a picture and know the name of it in both French and their local language.

above left: Happy kids reading books that are from and about Burkina Faso.  These books were printed by FAVL (Friends of African Village Libraries) and all photos and stories are from Burkina and written in Burkinabe French, and sometimes also in local language.  Topics include: “The Market,” “How to Make a Drum,” “Animals in Burkina,” and more. above right:  Middle school students who meet for Theater Club at the library.   bottom left: Elementary students proudly showing their newly acquired library cards. bottom right: Me, Zephirin Gouabe (President of the Library Association), and Molly Morrison showcasing some of our favorite books available at the library.

Early Childhood Education (at the library)….SPA-GAD

Once the library was up and running, we took things to the next level: preschool.  There are very limited resources and opportunities for young children in Burkina Faso, and this inhibits their ability to succeed once they start primary school at age 6 or 7.  They do not know their letters or numbers in local language, and certainly not in French, when they arrive at primary school.  They can’t write or even copy letters (motor skills) and many often don’t know their own name or how to identify their written name on a piece a paper.  In order to address these needs, books aimed specifically at young children were added to the library, as well as other intellectually stimulating resources, such as colored blocks made by the local carpenter.  Young children who do not yet attend school (and even those who do go to school!) are now able to look at the books in the library, play with the materials, practice motor and social skills, and develop school-readiness skills with the support of parents, student mentors, older siblings, and teachers during open library hours.  An official preschool/daycare will be starting this October, taught by a qualified (and university-educated) woman who has lived in the village for years but didn’t have a job.

photos above:  Fatimata and I play with blocks…until she decided that she didn’t like me anymore.  Good thing her mom was standing nearby.  Below left:  It’s not surprising to see an 8-year-old walking alone down the road, bringing his or her four younger siblings – even the babies! – to the library for a morning of fun activities.  Parents are often too busy working in the fields to accompany their children.  Below middle & right:  But sometimes parents (usually mothers) do come with their children, or at least stop by to pick them up and see what the children are learning.

Above photos:  Adult volunteers at the library play with the preschool-aged children, giving structured learning activities.  “Find me all the yellow blocks….  Now find me a block with the letter A.”  Below photos:  Drawing time in the preschool room!  Also, they are practicing sharing crayons.  Initially kids were very possessive and had a difficult time sharing colors, and so we had to give each child 2 or 3 crayons only and tell them they couldn’t use anyone else’s crayons except their own.  Now we can place the crayons at the center of the table for everyone; they choose one color at a time and put it back in the center when they are done

Health Awareness Campaign (at the library)….SPA-HIV/AIDS

An additional project sponsored and hosted by the library involved a series of health campaigns.  As identified by the community, many individuals had expressed great interest in combating the health issues that they face on a regular basis, from teachers to farmers to business owners to students. Health problems affect everyone and because of this many community members would like to be educated on these issues in order to better protect themselves and their families.  The population of the community and its surrounding villages is roughly 18,000 people, and the area is situated close to a river, which means that the rate of malaria is one of the highest in the country. Furthermore, this community is host to an international market and a number of high-traffic construction projects so there is a large population of unattached men moving through this area. With the recent political trouble in Mali, the area has seen a flux in strangers passing through. These issues have contributed to increased incidents of prostitution which raises the risk of HIV/AIDS for everyone in the community.

Health problems like malaria, AIDS, hygiene, and nutrition have been identified as high priorities for the people in this area. It is particularly important that the young people in this region learn how diseases are transmitted and how they can protect themselves and reduce the frequency of illness in their community, and so a series of health formations and day camps for 5-8^th graders has been held.

Top photos:  Women learned about preventing malnutrition in their babies and young children.  As part of the formation, they got to try enriched porridge, a source of vitamins and protein, that they can easily make on their own with locally found ingredients.  Some of the children liked it; others weren’t so fond of the new food.  Bottom:  A boy reads a children’s book about HIV/AIDS, following a group lesson on HIV/AIDS and reducing stigma.

Other photos….

Top left:  Me, walking down the road with students, in order to get from the primary school to the library about 2 km away.  Twenty students were chosen at random from the class to participate in the reading day camp.  I had to pick them up at the school, since the library was still quite new and they didn’t yet know where it was.  Top right:  Story time after lunch.  Since it was the week of Christmas, we read “Christmas around the World.”  This particular page was about celebrating Christmas in Japan, and the students loved analyzing the colorful photos: “Look!  They don’t sit on chairs, like us!  They drink tea, just like us!”  Bottom left:  Me, working with a student one-on-one during the reading day camp.  Bottom  right:  Molly taking the time to jump rope with campers during the afternoon break of an overnight camp

Top left:  Jula literacy class for women.  While the women learn to read and write in their local language, their young children are inside the library building reading books, coloring, and doing puzzles.  Top right:  PCV Careth Davis brought her Life Skills Club comprised of 3-4^th graders to the library for a day of reading and learning about America.  The students left their village at 6am to bike the 10 km to the library, yet when they arrived, they weren’t the least bit tired because they were so excited to see a library for the first time in their lives.  We read books in French about the USA, used maps to locate our home states (Careth is from Vermont; I’m from Minnesota), learned some English words and sang “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” in both French and English, discussed what a library is and what one can do at a library, and more. Bottom:  Molly reads a pop-up book under the library’s big shade tree.  I’m sitting with the kids.  

Model School Rant (from August 2011)

Well, apparently I never posted this when I wrote it over 2 years ago.  I think I meant to add to it, or just make sure I had taken anything out that sounded too angry.....  but anyways, here it is, exactly as I found it.  I haven't changed anything, though as I'm reading it through, I find that there are, of course, numerous things I'd like to correct.  But, at the same time, much of it remains surprisingly accurate, despite me learning much about the Burkinabe school system during my two years in math classroom.

August 25, 2011

Model School

About a month ago, we started model school.  

My model school class, with Evan (math) and Nina (science).

Model school is basically like summer school, with classes Monday-Friday from 8am-noon, except that we’re the teachers, and most of us have never taught before…so it’s also like student teaching for us Peace Corps Trainees.  The students participating are from the local community (most are our host brothers/sisters), and they had to pay a small fee to participate in model school and receive this “extra educating.”  Essentially, we’re giving them a head-start on whatever material they’ll be learning this October when school starts…so naturally they had to pay a price to go to school and be taught by people who don’t know how to teach…or speak French...or (worst-case scenario) both.  Education isn’t free, ya know… 

For formal educators like moi (that’s French for “me”), there’s classrooms of 14-30 kids for each grade level – which is just a small fraction of the 100+ students we’ll have in our real classrooms this fall! – starting with 6e (i.e. the American equivalent of 6^th grade) through 3e (i.e. 9^th grade).  Each classroom has 4 of us PC teachers: 2 math and 2 science.  Each of us teaches one 55-minute class a day in our discipline (Math, Science, IT…) and occasionally we might have a second class where we teach English or a “Life Skills” lesson (i.e. how to wash your hands).  For the non-formal educators (previously known as “Girls Education and Empowerment” volunteers), there’s tutoring with elementary kids in small groups of 2-4 students, though sometimes groups combine together to play games or do a large-group activity.  All of us spend our mornings teaching/tutoring, planning lessons for the next day, or correcting assignments; then we eat lunch, followed by our normal afternoon language classes or sessions on administrative Peace Corps topics, such as “Organizing Income-Generating Activities” or “How to Retrieve Your Monthly Living Allowance Once You’re At Site...even if there’s no bank remotely close to your village.”

The 4 weeks of model school have gone by really fast and as I reflect upon this teaching experience, I find it ironic that today is actually my last day with these kids.  Well, besides for tomorrow, when we hand back their final tests, eat popcorn and drink bisap juice, and then play soccer: students vs. teachers.  I’m prepared for us Americans to get our butts kicked in soccer…despite the fact that our students will be wearing plastic flip flops (or no shoes at all) while we sport fancy Adidas tennis shoes and athletic shorts.  It should be fun…and probably slightly embarrassing.  

Throughout the past month, my ideas and perceptions of education have changed significantly, as well as my own teaching philosophies and what Peace Corps’ main objective is with having us in formal classrooms.  Had I written about model school when it first started, or even a week ago, most (or all) of my thoughts would have given off a very negative, depressing, and angry undertone.  A lot of those feelings might still come across; however, I now feel that my overall opinion of model school and, in general, Education in Burkina Faso, is considerably better.  I have an improved outlook that’s more positive, as well as a more thorough understanding of why things are the way they are here, along with the ability to be more tolerant of practices that I don’t agree with.

Even if we have taught or worked with kids in some way before, speaking French and trying to teach “like” Burkinabe do (which I’ll painfully describe in a bit) is difficult and a huge learning experience for all of us.  Especially for those who have never really interacted with kids before.  Case in point: fellow PCT Mary. (I’ve changed her name to keep confidentiality.)  Before PC, Mary served as a corrections officer…aka she was a prison guard.  She’s pretty tough because of this…and some might even say she looks a little intimidating also.  And yet, after her first day of model school, she stated: “I’ve worked with prison inmates…and been in some pretty intense situations…but I’ve never been more scared in all my life than I was today, standing in front of 8-year-olds.”

Having been through formal teacher training and having had lots of practice planning lessons, even I struggled at first and felt really awful about my teaching abilities.  In fact, on my first day, I remember walking out of my classroom after my horrible math lesson thinking to myself, “Send me back to the U.S. now -- I want my classroom full of American kids who have textbooks to look at and decent chalkboards to write on.”  When there’s nothing for the kids to use or look at (or curriculum/examples for a teacher to base a lesson on), teaching is extremely difficult.  Not knowing French doesn’t help any, either.  Not only am I unable to visually show them anything to help explain concepts, but I can’t even verbally tell them anything or explain a term in “other words” besides what the definition says as I don’t yet have the vocabulary base to do that.  And I definitely can’t ask questions, because not only do the students not understand me, but whatever they respond with – right or wrong – I haven’t a clue what they’re saying.  Not good.  Because of my teacher training, I know exactly what I’m missing in my lessons (from an American standpoint), which perhaps made the whole experience worse, since I could compare it to how I would teach in an American classroom or what questions/activities I would normally include in a lesson.  Yes, my teacher training definitely helped me be more flexible, feel comfortable with kids, and have tons of ideas to draw from that I could try to modify and make work here in Burkina, but it also made me realize just how much kids in Burkina are missing in their education right now, which naturally, made me really depressed.  Sure, my colleagues felt bad because they were scared of kids AND didn’t know how to teach or speak French, but at least they didn’t have to feel like they were diminishing in their teaching abilities.  No one ever wants to get worse at anything – everyone inertly seeks improvement. My PC friends could, in all honesty, only improve: improve at French, at feeling comfortable with kids, and at being a successful teacher.   I could improve too, but first I had to back-track and live through being a period of being a bad teacher – like the same level I was at (if not worse, due to lack of French fluency) during my first year of college when I first began doing practicums and teaching experiences.  To return to that level after 5 years of formal study, practice, student teaching, and substituting in various schools was difficult and made me question why I was even in Burkina, rather than in America where I knew my teaching skills would have been put to use and appreciated…

And so speaking of having my teaching skills “appreciated”…  just like how food, clothing, and languages are different here compared to the USA, so is the school system and how classrooms operate.  A lot of improvements have been made in Burkina Faso in recent years to develop stronger curriculum programs, safer classroom environments, and well-trained teachers….but there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done.  For the most part, the way teachers teach in Burkina would not be approved of in America, and probably not even called “teaching.” Once again, don’t get me wrong – there ARE good teachers in Burkina who are very successful in their classrooms and are “positive deviants” (as we like to call them in the Peace Corps), practicing other methods/styles of teaching that are different from the norm.  However, the education system overall (and its teachers) appear to be in dire need of positive reform, as right now the typical Burkinabe classroom is not an optimal place for anyone to be or for a kid to actually learn anything, whether math facts, how to speak an opinion, or how to solve problems.  This is a result of many factors:

1.       Personal attitudes (i.e. lack of passion for the job).  For many of the “educated” people in Burkina, the only job available is as a teacher. While pay and job conditions aren’t great (a similar complaint of teaching jobs in America), it’s much better than being jobless or resorting to selling mangos on the side of the road.  Often times, teachers end up taking a job in a community other than their own, and so during the school week they live near school, but during weekends and summers, they have nothing to do with the community or their students. So unless they really desire to be a teacher, there’s not a lot of motivation for a person to emotionally invest in his/her students or to try to be a successful teacher.

2.       Lack of teacher/professional training.  To be an elementary teacher, one only needs to pass through middle school, pass the corresponding test that all middle school kids take to get into high school, and then complete a brief training/certification.  To be a middle school teacher, one needs to have completed all the requirements/tests of high school and undergo a brief teacher training. And, to be a high school teacher, one needs to have done two years of university.  Although secondary school teachers are generally “more educated” than primary school teachers, neither have actual college training or anything at all comparable to what is required of teachers in the USA.  From what I’ve seen/heard, the only people at a school who have “college” degrees are the supervisors/directors (essentially the equivalent of American principals or superintendents).  I could be mistaken with the facts here and all the exact details, but the general idea remains: a person doesn’t have to be “highly qualified” to be declared a teacher and be entrusted with 100+ kids. 

3.       Limited resources.  This is a big one.  Forget smart boards, math manipulatives, construction paper, or, well, any paper.  There’s no books, no examples or pictures or science labs or computers or anything.  Except for the little notebooks that each student is required to buy along with their 3 pens (red, black, and blue), pencil, ruler, and protractor.  That’s it.  Oh, I almost forgot, we do have chalkboards….very very crappy chalkboards aka pieces of wood covered in black paint. But that’s all we got to work with.  Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to teach about the make-up of a cell, when there are NO pictures for students to look at and see where the cell wall and nucleus are actually located?  Or to demonstrate how to use a computer when there isn’t one within 50km of their village?  The best alternative is to attempt to draw a picture of it on the pathetic chalkboards and be like, “Look, here’s a computer.  And this here is the mouse that you’d put your hand on to move the arrow that would show up on the computer screen, provided there’s electricity so you can turn the computer on.”  It’s so sad to think that the only image of a computer or plant cell or x-y-z coordinate plane that they’ll ever see is whatever the teacher can draw with white chalk…hopefully the teacher has some artistic skills…and hopefully the kids do too cuz the only picture they’ll have to refer to or study from is what they copy down into their little notebook – they’re basically writing their own textbooks, since they don’t have real textbooks to use.  Furthermore, it’s hard to improve literacy when the kids never get to read stories or even read passages from textbooks aloud.  The might copy down the sentences from the board, but that doesn’t mean they know how to read it, whether mentally in their heads or verbally aloud with correct pronunciation. 

4.       Too many students.  100+ students crammed 4 or 5 to a little desk, with barely enough room between each row for the teacher to walk through, really restricts what types are things are done in class.  No group activities cuz there’s nowhere for the students to go besides outside…but Burkinabe frown upon that…plus it’s really difficult to monitor aka “babysit” 100+ teenagers when they’re given the freedom to do something outside of the boundaries of the 20x20 foot classroom.  Little to no homework, projects, or assignments given, cuz what teacher wants to grade 100+ papers each night, multiplied by however many classes they teach each day?  No one.  Thus, no homework or practice problems occur, and if they do, they’re rarely corrected and so students never know if they’re doing it right or wrong… 

5.       Repeating history.  Teachers teach like they were taught themselves.  It’s all they know.  If the only thing they ever did in school was copy down sentences from the chalkboard, why would they even think to do something different, like plan an activity or sing a song or talk about a current event for the first 5 minutes of class.  This also applies to their actual teaching methods.  Here, “teaching” is reading a passage/definition aloud to the students, having the students copy it word for word in their notebook, and then having each student recite it aloud.  For example, let’s say I was teaching about angles.  The Burkinabe way would have me say and write on the board: A right angle measures exactly 90 degrees.  Then each kid would stand up, one at a time, and say, “A right angle measures exactly 90 degrees,” and then the next kid, “A right angle measures exactly 90 degrees,” and the next, “A right angle measures exactly…”  Now everyone has repeated the definition and so everyone knows what right angles are.  Done.  Time to move on to acute angles.  There’s no application, no asking students to rephrase the definition in their own words, nothing like that.  If they can repeat the definition, then they must know it (and understand it), right?   Fun fact about Burkinabe kids: They are masterminds at memorizing and repeating definitions word for word; I can stand in front of a class and ask, “What’s malaria?” Or a light-year?  Or a verb?  And I will get the exact definition from the dictionary, from every kid, every time.  Yet, if I ask what that means, or for an example, no one has a clue.  They’re never asked questions like that.  Implementing new teaching methods is what is going to have the most impact on improving education in Burkina; instead of just having kids memorize facts and definitions, other teaching styles would encourage them to ask questions, take risks, speak up, learn HOW to learn, respect each other (whether male or female), and more.  All of which are necessary key ingredients for helping develop the youth of a nation so that they can have the skills and confidence to continue developing their nation themselves.

To get a better idea of how all these factors contribute to the environment of a Burkinabe classroom, as well as why I was frustrated and feeling extremely negative about education in Burkina (from an American teacher perspective), here’s some personal examples of things I experienced/observed throughout my four weeks of model school:

**While observing a Burkinabe teacher, only those who raised their hands where called on.  Girls hardly ever volunteered to answer a question, and so the teacher never picked them and thus girls (and some boys, too) were silent the whole class.  Also, a teacher wrote 7 rather simple review problems on the board to start class for the day.  Once everyone finished, they went through the answers.  Well, questions 1 and 2, that is. That’s all they did that hour.  If this had been America, the review and correcting would have taken a whole 10 minutes (if even that) and then the rest of the hour would have been spent on learning something new.  Class here moves realllllly slowly.  Yes, this is also partly a cultural thing – no one is in as big of a hurry or worried about efficiency like we are in the USA.  But still, if class moved just a little bit quicker, students would cover twice as much material each year.

**Being told that it was not possible – in fact, pretty much “unacceptable” – to ever take students outside.  My friends who teach science wanted to take their classes on a short nature walk to collect different leaves for looking at under a microscope, and even they were told no.  So, as you can imagine, as a math teacher, I was definitely shot down.  What could you possibly learn about numbers or shapes outside, without a chalkboard?  (I had planned to draw a life-size XY-coordinate plane in the dirt and then have them practice “graphing points” by placing themselves on whatever spot I said, i.e. “Mohamed, skip to the origin…Djamilla, hop to (-3, 1).”  So much for my creativity and trying to make math fun.)

** I was teaching geometry, specifically how the 3 angles of a triangle ALWAYS equal 180.  I could have just told them: “The sum of the 3 angles of a triangle are always equal exactly 180 degrees.”  That would have been easy and taken a whole 30 seconds.  But critical thinking is lacking here, so I decided to first ask the students if they knew (and of course no one did…or at least would admit to knowing it).  So then I proceeded to have the students draw triangles, measure each angle, and find the sum of the three angles.  We did this for several triangles, getting a sum of 180 each time, taking a whole 8 minutes – maybe 10 minutes – of class, before the students came to the conclusion themselves that the sum of a triangle’s angles is always 180.  Next we did some practice problems, where I gave them 2 angles and they found the third.  This was no problem for them and we only had to do a few examples, as they all clearly understood, having discovered the property for themselves.  We then proceeded to move onto the sum of the 4 angles of a quadrilateral using a similar process (which they quickly grasped), and so at the end of the 55-minute class period, I gave them some homework problems on finding the missing angles of triangles and quadrilaterals.  I only had about 2 minutes left before class was over, so I quickly wrote the homework problems on the board.  By hand I drew what resembled an isosceles triangle, wrote A, B, and C, respectively for each angle, and below the triangle made a chart with A, B, and C at the top and then 5 rows under it, with 2 measurements given but not the third; for example, A=60 and C=20; B=?    I did the same thing for quadrilaterals; quickly drawing what should have been a parallelogram but didn’t really have lines that were all that parallel…  The kids understood what to do, copied the homework problems down so they could finish them at home, and then left because class was over.  Good lesson…or at least, not bad, right?  So I thought.  I was feeling pretty good about that day.  

Until I got my feedback from our Burkinabe supervisors:

1.       Don’t have the student’s find their own sum of a triangle’s angles.  It takes too much time.  Also, they might only total 170 instead of 180, and then they will think that the 3 angles always equal 170. It is better if you tell them the property and write it on the board, and then have everyone repeat it aloud.  That’s all you need to do, don’t try to plan activities.  They will only learn that it’s 180 degrees if you tell them the definition of a triangle and they repeat it.  (I explained that it was a “fun” exercise for them to do and required them to use critical thinking and discovery processes, even if it did take a few more minutes than just straight out telling them “A triangle’s angles = 180.”  I also clarified that I made certain every triangle’s angles added up to 180 so the students couldn’t draw inaccurate conclusions, and that at the end of the activity, I did do the standard Burkinabe “write the definition and have the kids read it”…but it didn’t matter.  My activity was wrong and prevented the kids from truly learning the definition and repeating it aloud for at least 10-15 minutes like we apparently were supposed to.)

2.       The curriculum requires that you spend 2 hours teaching the sum of angles in a triangle and 3 hours on quadrilaterals, for a total of 5 hours on this chapter.  You only spent 55 minutes on BOTH.  You can’t do that.  Today’s lesson should ONLY have been triangles.  And tomorrow’s should be triangles again. Quadrilaterals shouldn’t be until next week at the earliest.  (I tried to justify that the students clearly understood the concepts, and that’s why I moved on to quadrilaterals right away.  Doesn’t matter.  The curriculum says 5 hours and that’s what needs to be done so that the students learn the material.  If I don’t do this amount of time, the students will NOT learn.   …thus Burkina tends to base student progress/success on the amount of time spent doing something, whether or not the student actually masters the topic during that said amount of time.)

3.       You ask a lot of questions to the students.  Spend more time telling them information that they need to copy into their notebook, and less time asking them what they think or to explain how they found the answer.  It’s not necessary to ask questions like that.  (This type of feedback was common to all of us PC trainees.  Almost everyone was told at least once to do less “teaching” and more “dictating.”  It doesn’t take a very skilled person to be a teacher in classrooms here (or much time to plan lessons), if all’s you have to do for the majority of most class periods is read paragraphs out of a textbook, slowly, word-for-word, sentence by sentence, so the kids can copy it down.)

4.       Don’t use the same book as the students.  You had the student’s version of the curriculum at your desk, rather than the teacher’s book.  If your students see you using the student book, they will lose respect for you because it shows that their teacher isn’t smart enough to use the teacher book and thus must only be at the same level of mathematics as they are.  (I presented several points with this issue.  Firstly, yes I had the student book, but I didn’t use it or ever refer to it during class – not even once!  It remained closed the whole time.  Next, the teacher’s book is exactly the same as the student’s, except the cover is blue.  There is nothing different about the books except for the teacher’s version having answers to some of the practice exercises.  Plus, the students don’t have books for themselves anyways, so how would they even know I’m using the “student” book?  And finally, I explained that in America teachers often use the same materials as their students, even if a teacher’s version is available.  This is because it shows that the teacher is looking at the exact same thing as the students, thus having the same information (nothing extra or special), and consequently that the teacher is learning/discovering the material right alongside his/her students – that they are learning TOGETHER.  That didn’t fly here…none of my reasons did.)

5.       Here in Burkina, you must always use didactic tools when drawing shapes on the board.  You cannot free-hand a circle or triangle or any shape, even if they are extremely accurate.  For example, when making a rectangle, you must use the compass and measure each angle to ensure it’s exactly 90 degrees.  You must also use the large ruler to create perpendicular lines and confirm each side is the same length as the other. You cannot call it a rectangle, unless you have actually truly drawn one; you may not even tell the students to imagine or pretend the shape is a rectangle, no matter how closely it resembles one.  (Once again, I had several justifications.  The lesson was not on drawing shapes or on the actual properties/laws of what defines a rectangle from a square from a rhombus, etc., as the kids are taught how to draw all shapes, using their special tools to make perfect angles and parallel lines, from the time they are little tikes in primary school.  Thus, why do I need to spend all that time on perfecting the shapes on the chalkboard, with middle school kids who already know how to do it, when that is not what’s important for this lesson.  Had I drawn each shape perfectly using the didactic tools, we would have only gotten through 2 examples in the 55-minute class period, and not the 15+ that we did and corrected.)

6.       Your French has been improving…but you have difficulties with pronunciation and your diction is bad. Also, it’s “l’angle” not “le angle.”  (Perfect.  Just what I wanted to hear.  I have “bad” diction.”  That’s constructive.  Most of the feedback we received was like this, except that we got about 100 more comments of this type…each day…to every 1 or 2 critiques we received about our actual teaching.  Unfortunately, feedback tended to be primarily based around our mediocre French skills, rather than on our teaching methods or rapport with students.  Yes, it’s important to be able to speak the language, but at the same time, don’t worry about it.  Our French has been improving and will continue to improve because we speak it all the time: at the market, in language class, with our host families.  Teaching strategies, on the other hand, will not be learned anywhere else except actually in the classroom, so it’s more important right now to get constructive criticism on our teaching…not our French.  Plus, of course my French sucks.  What do you expect?  I’ve only been speaking it for 2 months now and most of these math terms I’ve NEVER ever heard or said before, unlike the everyday life words we hear on a regular basis, such as eau (water) or dormir (to sleep). So of course they’re going to come out wrong or slightly mispronounced.  I’d like to see you teach a math class…in English…with perfect diction.  Besides, l’angle…le angle…la angle…whatever, it’s all the same. The students knew what I meant.  They didn’t have a problem understanding me.  And that’s the important thing.)

When it comes down to it, those of us PC volunteers in Burkina who are assigned to a formal classroom for a whole 10 hours a week (yes, that’s right, only a measly TEN hours each week; essentially one 2-hour lesson a day), are not here to actually teach Burkinabe students biology or turn them into mathematicians.  Inspire them, yes.  Encourage them to continue studying math at University and become a math teacher, definitely.  Help them get a better grasp on basic algebra, sure, why not?  Improve their study methods so they have a better chance of passing the BEPC and continuing their education past middle school, of course.  But in the long run, creating high-achieving, academically successful students who can rattle of exactly the speed of light or all of the periodic table of elements isn’t going to do much to fix Burkina.  At this stage in development, what’s going to most help the people of Burkina is eating nutritious diets, brushing teeth and washing hands, sleeping under mosquito nets to prevent Malaria, going to the local clinic to give birth rather than giving birth at home, giving equal rights/respect to men and women, getting girls to go to school, etc.  While our influence within schools will be important, our success should not solely be based on how “good” of a math or biology or chemistry teacher one is.  Really, even if we absolutely suck at teaching (or even understanding) our subject matter, it’s no big deal.  My students could spend the whole school year with me and never actually learn how to multiply fractions like they’re supposed to, according to the 20-year-old curriculum standards Burkina follows, but it’s okay.  Because as Peace Corps Teachers, we’re striving to teach other things.  Things more important and crucial at this point in time for the students/people of Burkina than knowing how many feet are in a mile (which they’ll never learn, by the way, since this is Africa and Africa uses the metric system…like everywhere else in the world does, except for the USA).  Rather, our success as teachers will be based on whether or not we create a safe environment where girls aren’t afraid to raise their hand and kids not only ask questions but also seek answers for themselves instead of relying solely on what someone says or what the teacher writes on the blackboard.