Teaching Maths

TEACHING MATHS

            Peace Corps’ project framework in Botswana revolves around the prevention of HIV and AIDS and the provision of support services for those who live with that condition. The Botswana government does a decent job treating the 30% of the population who are HIV+.  It pays for free anti-retroviral drugs for those who need it, meaning that people no longer are dying of AIDS in anywhere close to the numbers recorded ten to fifteen years ago.  That was a very difficult time, as described in the book Saturdays are for Funerals by Unity Dow.

            Peace Corps first came to Botswana in the 1960’s, right after independence.  The volunteers worked in a number of capacities, including as teachers in secondary schools.  In fact, Peace Corps volunteers taught many of Botswana’s current government leaders a generation ago.  By the 1980’s, Botswana’s wise investment of its diamond wealth -- into education and infrastructure -- had begun to pay off.  Therefore Peace Corps decided that it could not justify remaining in the country, and so pulled out.  But fifteen years later, with the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic, Botswana asked Peace Corps to return, this time to focus on making sure that the population, and especially young people, learn about HIV and develop the life skills to avoid the mistakes of the prior generation.  Research had shown that having available the best prevention and treatment measures cannot alone stop HIV.  People fundamentally need to change certain behaviors.  That’s where we come in.

            Stephanie is perfectly suited for this type of work, and she hit the ground running, training counselors at the senior secondary school.  But all of this is not close to anything in my background.  Still, I am making the best of it.  I hope to work with a government agency that makes grants to NGOs on HIV related matters, and in doing so uses a rigorous evaluation process.  Meanwhile, I have been working on life skills curriculum matters at my junior secondary skills, and I have been teaching some related classes.  I have been working with a peer educators group that enjoys drama: we developed and staged a play for the school about two imaginary classmates who engaged in sex for money with truck drivers (this sort of stuff really happens, and even more so: school girls here sometimes have sex to earn prepaid cell phone airtime).

            I have also been helping out with coaching track (athletics).  It is the subject of several prior blog posts, and it is a type of life skills education.  But then, earlier this term, my school head came to me and mentioned that she was down one math teacher.  They are in short supply here, as in the United States. So, she wondered whether I could help out for a term.  I said yes.  I figured that while it is not part of the Peace Corps project framework, still it will help integrate me into the life of the school.

            Since then I have been teaching one section of Form 1 (8^th grade) maths (yes, they add an “s” to it) and one of Form 2 (9^th grade) maths.  There are 51 students in my Form 1 class; 43 in my Form 2 class.  They are of mixed ability, both in terms of math and English comprehension.  While I can speak some Setswana, I teach almost entirely in English.  Halfway through the term, my Form 2 students got their textbooks; my Form 1 students are still waiting for theirs.

            Despite these challenges, teaching maths has been great fun.  Most of my students enjoy the novelty of a lekgoa (white/English speaking) teacher.  I was a good maths student years back and so the syllabus is easy for me to follow.  I am getting better at creating and recording lesson plans and at marking tests.  I try to make the lessons lively, which is different from the didactic style that many teachers here employ.  A set of lessons involved money and one class was devoted to currency exchange rates.  Luckily, I had stored away some South African rand and American dollars, so I brought to school a 20 rand note, a US$20 bill and a 20 Botswana pula note.  I had the students use them to work out different currency transactions.  And, yes, I got all of my money back at the end of the class.

            It has not all been easy.  The students seem to know that I will not use corporal punishment.  It is legal in Botswana and many teachers do resort to it.  Some of the more rowdy students (i.e. boys) have been testing their limits.  In turn I am testing out different classroom management techniques, but I still have a ways to go.  Corporal punishment is a topic unto itself, one that I will not delve into here.  Suffice it to say that Peace Corps volunteers in schools regularly confront it, and it can be disturbing.  Still, our job is not to reform classroom discipline in Botswana, but rather to improve the life skills of the students in the classroom.

            Meanwhile, I take delight that my Form 1 students are solving problems with mixed operations and my Form 2 students are calculating the angles of intersecting lines and polygons.  We will see where things go from here.