Last week, I played “Jeopardy” with my 8th graders to review for their 1st trimester Chemistry exam. None of the students had ever heard of the game, but they loved it, getting extremely competitive over questions like “What is a substance?” and “What is a method used to separate a mixture of sand and water?” After a series of serious questions one group inevitably would choose “C for 200,” for which the question was “Sing the refrain of a song by Lizha James [a well-known Mozambican singer].” In most of my classes, the room broke out into laughter and a few girls would stand up and sing some lines of “Nu Wa Nima” or “Já Não Me Tens Valor.” But in Section 8 the game was close: The group that got this question looked at each other very seriously and Guedes, a tall, lanky boy, rose up slowly, body already swiveling in James’ trademark Macarena-like dance and broke out into song “Ni tamuku makwi niluwe walisi mahosa hosa…” Then, the whole class broke out laughing.
I thoroughly enjoy teaching in Mozambique. My methods of doing things tend to be different than my students are used to, but rather than detracting from their learning, I think new approaches stretch their minds. Perhaps my students found the idea of playing Jeopardy in the classroom silly, but they had a good time and it was a great review lesson to help them remember all of the complicated chemistry information I taught them over the first 8 weeks of school.
The difference in the education system and pedagogical methods between Mozambican and American schools often staggers me. Even at Secondary School Laura Vicuña, a school run by Catholic Sisters where I have been volunteering for the past 8 months, there is a huge lack of resources and educational tools. Of my 300+ students in 8th grade chemistry, only 3 own textbooks. And those three all have the oldest version, printed at least ten years ago. All of the information that the kids learn about chemistry is what comes out of my mouth during class.
A common method for transmitting information in the classroom, as I’ve seen by observing some Mozambican teachers, is to dictate information. Seeing this was sort of incredible to me: The teacher sits at the front of the classroom with notebook open in front of her and reads a lesson, for instance about basic properties of chemical substances or the commutative property in mathematics, and the students copy every word the teacher says. They write furiously, heads down, switching from blue to red pen to highlight key words. The students’ notebooks, then, with these precisely taken notes, serve as their textbooks.
I have adopted some Mozambican school traditions – such as wearing a white lab coat in the classroom – but I have not dictated anything more than homework assignments at the end of class. I write out all my lessons in chalk on the blackboard, and the students have gotten used to my different style.
A school without books also has no science equipment or other tools for hands-on learning. I performed a science experiment a few weeks back by doing a demonstration of “separation of mixtures” with water, chalk, some cups and a coffee filter I brought from my house. The kids were super excited to see something practical in the classroom – so much of their learning is purely and completely theoretical. The teachers also thought it was cool: The other chemistry teacher asked to borrow my cups to do the same in her classes, and a Portuguese teacher stopped me as I left the classroom to test his memory on types of mixtures from his own high school days.
Portuguese, the national language of Mozambique and the language used to teach in schools, is not the first language for the vast majority of Mozambicans. Many students arrive in primary school only speaking Chopi or Shangaana or Chisena – maternal African languages – and only begin to learn Portuguese in first grade, often with many difficulties. For a variety of complicated reasons, many students pass through primary school whether they can read, write, and figure or not. Many of the young girls who live at the Laura Vicuña Orphanage, which is part of the compound where I live and work, come to us with a certificate stating they have passed 4th, 5th, or even 8th grade – but often they can’t read and don’t recognize their letters or numbers. In extreme of these cases, some of my students fail their 8th grade chemistry tests not because they do not understand the material, but because they can’t read the questions written in Portuguese!
On a national level, Mozambique lacks teachers. At most schools, teachers tend to be young and overworked (some carrying as many as 40 or 50 hours of in-classroom time per week). In order to improve the current situation, the Mozambican government has lowered the required level of education necessary to teach secondary school. Many teachers enter the workforce having 10th or 12th grade education plus a year of teacher formation.
Teachers and administrators understand the deficiencies in their students’ education and want to improve their schools. There’s much talk of ‘development,’ and a strong emphasis on teaching with the latest methods available. When the country came out of a long civil war 15 years ago, the government wanted to improve education – and top administrators have often looked outside their own country for help. The foreign Non-Governmental Organizations that help direct school-development often require a high ‘passing rate’ in the Mozambican schools to prove the ‘effectiveness’ of their programs. “Foreigners came in and wrote our new curriculums for us,” our physics teacher said to me one day, “and they say that 80% of our students have to pass. But what if they don’t deserve to pass?” The government re-writes the national curriculum every few years taking out things that don’t seem to work and trying out new ideas. But, developing an entire country’s education system is slow work.
Working here as a foreigner, the vast differences in our education systems sometimes make me forget where I come from and type of schools I went to. When I took high school chemistry, we all received packets of worksheets, a glossy periodic table, and a chemistry textbook, and we did experiments in a laboratory. I must continually remind myself not to become complacent in my acceptance of how things are here. I try to give simple experiments as I can and work with the knowledge that I was so lucky to have had the opportunity to obtain.
After the class in which I gave my students the demonstration on mixtures, I gave an unusual homework assignment: I told them to do their own experiment at home. Mix water and salt, then put some of the mixture on a piece of paper, set the paper in the sun, and see what happens. Not many of the students did the assignment – it fell pretty far from normal review questions in their notebook – but the few that did were so proud: “Look teacher, I got salt!” A few students, nervous that no salt appeared on their paper, sprinkled on some extra table salt and tried to pass it off as their results – a perfect opportunity for me to discuss honesty in science experiments.
My main goal in my short time here is to offer some fresh ideas. I lead music and theatre extra-curricular groups at the school for the same reason: I want to present some new opportunities to the students. Not all my ideas are well-accepted. But, I’m not here to create big changes – enough foreigners have meddled with life here and done harm. I just work to provide a different perspective on life for my students and colleagues and a chance to try some activities they might not otherwise have the chance to experience. Students turning in their first-ever chemistry experiment and dancing in the classroom are my invaluable reward.
