MODEL SCHOOL

So, a few weeks ago, we had a “sink or swim” week at a Basic Cycle School in a nearby village, in the Gambian Peace corps version of student teaching, an event called Model School. Since it’s summer here, they gathered 25 students from each grade (fifth through eighth), and Peace Corps PAID them to come and do fun lessons with Peace Corps volunteers.

It was good to be in a classroom again. Since corporal punishment is a very real part of the education experience of all of these children, students are very well behaved, and I didn’t have to deal with the attitudes and misbehavior that run rampant in American schools. Most of the time, students did what I asked them to do, and when I got my teacher voice going, they straightened up. This was perhaps not the most realistic depiction of Gambian schools, since they picked the best students to attend Model School, and normal classrooms have about 60 students.

In one of our cultural lessons, we learned that Gambian meeting times are very fluid. They said that if you plan to have a meeting at 3, you can expect it to start at 5 or 5:30. I was horrified, and refused to believe it. But, our model school graduation was supposed to start at 3, and didn’t get going until about 4:30.

During Model School, I taught fifth grade math and seventh and eighth grade gym. One of these (elementary math) was my major and minor, and one of these (gym) I never did before. But, man, I was a killer gym teacher. I think I missed my calling. I taught one class to play capture the flag, and one of them I taught to play ultimate Frisbee. On the evaluation at the end of Model School, numerous eighth graders wrote that their favorite part was “freez-bee”. Soon enough, it will be the national sport of the Gambia. Mission one: on the way to accomplishment.

One of my gym lessons happened to land on the first day of Ramadan. Halfway through the hour long lesson, I took some mercy on the students and took them to the well to get some water. Some of the students gave me weird looks, but I thought that was just because I was being exceedingly generous, giving them water at the middle of a period. I was surprised when all of the Anna’s, Pa Louis’, Philip, and Frances’ (the Christians) could get water, but the Alhagie’s, Oumie, Hawa, and Muhammed’s (the Muslims) had to abstain. (My African eighth grade class had whiter names than my class in NC!)

Capture the flag went amazingly well. I was pretty nervous about the language barrier before I started the lesson, so when students were doing what I wanted, I was ecstatic. I tried to give some of the ones who were trying really hard and following directions a simple, innocent high five. In doing so, I culturally insensitively forgot that the American “Way to go! Hit my hand in celebration!” is the same symbol as the Gambian “I’m about to beat you”. Oops.