So I’m still backtracking here, but the week after site visit (about a month ago), we ran “Model School” for a week. The learners were on their 2-week long holiday between terms (their terms run roughly Jan-April, May-Aug, Sep-Nov), and we basically bribed them with free food, notebooks, and pens to come to school for one of those weeks so that we could practice teaching in a safe environment.
Model School was quite an experience for all of us, I think. Like everything, schools here are exactly the same as schools in the US, and also nothing like schools in the US. We were lucky that we had smaller classes (since it wasn’t real school), but the minimum class size in Namibia is about 30 learners. Even dealing with our small classes of 12-20 students was a challenge, so it’s hard to imagine teaching to a class of 40 or so learners, as some teachers do.
I think one of the biggest challenges that Janine (the volunteer I was co-teaching with) and I faced was getting the learners to THINK. Even though the learners who came voluntarily to Model School tended to like school already, the classes they are used to are different than the classes we want to teach. The Namibian government really values education, and is putting a great deal of effort and funding into the educational system. (which is wonderful!!) However, there are still a few kinks to be worked out. Part of this is similar to the problems in the US – lots of mandatory tests mean that teachers sometimes teach to the test, and learners memorize facts so that they will pass. Then there is the added problem of “automatic promotion”, which prevents learners from being held back even if they fail a grade (passing is 40%, which is a whole other problem). This all adds up to a lot of teachers reciting facts, and a lot of learners memorizing facts, without much critical thinking about what is actually being done.
Seeing this in classrooms was a bit frustrating for us. It was interesting that the grade 6 learners seemed to be able to think for themselves much more than the grade 8 learners initially, and you wonder if this isn’t because they have been exposed to the educational system for fewer years. But happily, we found that even the older students definitely have the capacity for critical thinking! Even by the end of the week that we were with them, once the grade 8 learners realized what we wanted them to do, they were much more willing to risk guesses at questions and try to come up with their own solutions to new problems than when we started teaching them. It was really amazing to see this transformation just in a week, when we set new expectations for them.
This raises interesting questions, though. The Namibian government is trying desperately to improve education, and rigorous syllabi and frequent testing do seem like reasonable ways to try to improve academic performance. Where is the line, though, between high standards to encourage high performance and so much governmental oversight that it hinders performance? Or is it the teachers? We have seen again and again that teachers are not necessarily trained to foster critical thinking. And at least by the American way of thinking, corporal punishment in classrooms is not a way to encourage free thinking and academic honesty…
Anyway, model school brought up lots of difficult issues and gave us lots to think about! I’ve just outlined the interesting results here; don’t let me make you think it was all bad. It was great to get to know some of the Namibian learners, work with them, and see their progress over just a week. Plus, our classes were adorable. picture (our grade 6 learners) below.
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