10th February, 2014
Post by Lara
Cooking takes up a large part of the day here in Sierra
Leone. The majority of us who cook over
wood or charcoal fires have to start the fire, boil water to keep in a thermos
for hot drinks, pick the rocks and seeds out of the rice before washing it,
watch the rice carefully and adjust the flame to keep it from burning, and make
sauce from scratch. To go from no fire to dinner on the table takes a minimum
of 2 hours, and sometimes a lot longer. When
the wood is wet or for whatever reason doesn’t want to catch, the task of
making dinner becomes daunting. For this
reason, you tend to thank your lucky stars if any of your neighbors did their
cooking before you, because then you can walk over with a metal pan and ask,
“Yu get faya?” [Do you have fire?]. If some
embers remain, the neighbors will gladly let you scoop them out and carry them
home to start your own fire by just adding some kindling and fanning the flames
back up. It’s a nice break from the task
of gathering little bits of fuel (or in our case throwing a splash of kerosene
on the coals) and a box of matches and gently coaxing a fire to life over the
course of half an hour. Those with the embers don’t tend to be bitter about the
fact that they slaved away to get their cook fire going and you got to reap the
benefits—perhaps because they know that they’ll be on the receiving end one
day. Perhaps this custom of mooching off
of neighbors can give us insight into some of the frustrations we face as
teachers in Sierra Leone.
Just last week I
graded a math assignment where the answer to one question was 85 =
32768. Of the 50 or so students who did the assignment, I’d say about half got
the right answer, a quarter had something completely different, and the
remaining quarter wrote 32728 or 32708.
It doesn’t take a genius to deduce that this last group of students
copied the answers from someone, and did so poorly. When I mentioned to my students that a lot of
them “spied” the answers from others, several students adamantly insisted that
they didn’t cheat. I pointed out that
it’s more likely that they copied incorrectly than that their calculator
decided to feed them the wrong answer, and still a few claimed innocence. For me, this kind of bold-faced denial is a
sign that my students don’t rightly understand the point of homework and
assignments, which is to figure out how to get the right answer before you’re
forced to do it by yourself on a test. I
have no issue with my students helping each other, but it concerns me when they
fail to see the difference between one five-digit number and another, and also
fail to see the difference between entering 85 in their calculators
and just attempting to copy the answer from the nearest kid, whose handwriting
is less than readable.
Giving tests, we learn that the problem of “spying” is
almost ubiquitous—especially if the teacher in charge is obviously not paying
attention to the students. Kevin likes
to bring a book with him on test days and sit in front of the students
reading—as his eyes go down to the book, he sees students leaning over to other
desks, passing papers, and otherwise doing whatever they can to share their
answers. His zero-tolerance policy means
that when he does catch a student cheating, he takes the test immediately and
sends the student out—that tends to whip the others into shape a lot faster
than verbal warnings. For myself, I
happened to walk into one of my exams that was being proctored by two other
teachers last December, and I saw students fully out of their seats looking at
the same paper or consulting on answers.
Needless to say, I was appalled. The prevalence of relying on other
students for answers is such that I honestly have trouble deciding who it is in
my classes that understands the material and who is just fairly good at copying
from someone who gets it. What’s even
more surprising is that my students and even some teachers we know tend to be
confused that we Americans make such a big deal out of cheating. I’m beginning to think that my students and
fellow teachers view education in much the same way as they view making a fire.
I have to remember that as human beings we are pack animals
who have learned how to rely on each other when we can’t fend for
ourselves. In the realm of
collectivistic behavior, Sierra Leonean society is certainly more extreme than
that of the US. Good manners here
dictate that when you’re eating, you should always offer some food to anyone
you know who happens by, no matter how small your own portion is. Children are frequently raised by family
friends or even acquaintances who live near a school that the child can
attend. I’ve seen 6 kids share one
lollipop. Adults eat off the same plate
together. And students share
answers. Perhaps this phenomenon
shouldn’t come as a surprise—just as it’s perfectly acceptable to let your
neighbor labor over lighting a fire and then scoop out the remnants to start
your own, our students don’t seem to see any harm in one or two of them slaving
away to wrap their minds around a new topic and then passing the results—the
answers, not the methodology—along to those who don’t get it.
Hi Lara!
ReplyDeleteTeachers in the US face similar problems, definitely. Look at it this way- how lucky you are to have students collaborating! Most of the US students I've dealt with in my four years of teaching high-risk students are individualistic (selfish, really) and would prefer to work independently than work with someone who is not "cool" or who isn't popular.
If the US style doesn't fit your students, don't use it (it doesn't even work for most American students)! Have you thought about project-based learning? You can give tests through group collaboration. Plus, students are each assigned specific, unique tasks. It totally eliminates any potential for cheating, and there are ways to get around odd school schedules, absences, etc.
How beautiful is it that even the adult role models in your students' lives share everything they have? Wow. I want my kids to grow up seeing/experiencing that kind of camaraderie rather than be exposed to individualistic, materialistic behavior.
Collaborating is what we adults do in the real world. Whether we are writing grant proposals, giving presentations to potential clients, performing surgical operations, it isn't a one-person-doing-it-all model. I wish my students would be willing to utilize each other's skills more often; they'd be so much more prepared for a professional career.
There are TONS of sample project-based activities you can try! I've got tons of different projects for different grade levels/disciplines. Try this website:
http://bie.org/
Good luck!
Hi Pookie! Thanks for the comment-- I totally agree that collaboration is important, and I try to get my students to collaborate on everything prior to a test-- assignments, class work, practice problems, etc-- and I have similar problems, believe it or not. Even though some of my students are all too happy to let someone just take their answers on a test, it's like pulling teeth trying to get them to teach each other how to do the problems. I could really use that kind of help, too, because I'm dealing with poor primary education and a language barrier in addition to the common issues that plague all teachers. I wish they would help each other more-- just not during a test! Or here's another example-- Tuesday an assignment was due, but we didn't really have school because exams were starting. One student came by and turned in 4 assignments-- his name was spelled right but the other 3 were spelled wrong. They were all in the same handwriting (but he was wise enough to use two different sizes of paper and two different ink colors-- I did give him props for that). The whole point of the assignment is for these guys to practice solving the problems. If someone else is doing it for you, you're not getting the practice. So I agree-- I want more collaboration and teamwork in my school, and I think you'd be surprised to see how individualistic these kids can be, for all their willingness to let someone copy from them. Thanks for the website-- I'll see what I can find! I hope all's well in the DYT!
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