Science Education in the Southern Ethiopian Highlands

Himale lo-o? (how are you in Gamounia, the local language here)

I guess it has been a long time since I have written in this blog, but I have been learning a lot about science education on my latest visit to the NURU International project in the Southern Ethiopian Highlands. One interesting thing I learned is that Ethiopia has a strong focus on science education. In high school, at least 70% of students must be enrolled in a science track with the focus of their education being entirely on either physical or natural science. The difficulty with this is that most schools do not have laboratories or other materials necessary to teach these subjects well. Even in middle schools though, teachers are hired specifically to teach chemistry, physics, and biology. It seems like they are trying to prepare students here for future industrial jobs. In the village though, these jobs can be far and few between. Life is more agriculturally based. Hopefully the students studying science can also apply their skills locally though toward improving water quality and sanitation. For the younger students, they learn all subjects including science in their local language so hopefully this facilitates some connection between school and community. The students then begin learning Amharic and English in fourth grade. This does present a challenge for students who have limited exposure with these languages outside of school. In order to succeed in school, and to learn science, students here must be fluent in at least three languages by the time they reach high school. Anyway, those are just some insights into science education here in the Ethiopian Highlands. I hope to learn more during my two weeks here with Jimmy.

Lo a fe adi! (have a good afternoon)

Photos from Ethiopia and Cameroon

Highlights from Jimmy and my trip to Ethiopia:

 

Jimmy and I in front of the Blue Nile Falls.

 The Blue Nile Falls in the dry season. We definitely need to go back and see it during the rainy season.

 Jimmy and I with our friend Elias and his sisters.

Listening to traditional music.

Some of the paintings we saw in the monasteries.

Jimmy in front of our new castle home, a bit of a fixer-upper though (j/k).

...and Cameroon:

Mama Foupouagnigni and his family. The kids have really grown up since I was there in 2009.

Jimmy and I bargaining in the market.

Meeting our new friend, the silver back gorilla.

 I think he's trying for a career in modeling.

Giant tree that even Jimmy, me, and Ismail can't fit all the way around.

Election-time Vacations

During the Kenya presidential elections, Jimmy and I are leaving the country. We will be traveling in Ethiopia for one week with Alias (Jimmy's friend from Nuru) to meet his family, see the Blue Nile Falls, and the Ancient Monasteries. Then, Jimmy and I are off to Cameroon for a week to visit my friends, the Foupouagnignis and relax at the beach. We are looking forward to our next adventures and will share lots of pictures when we get back.

The Cultures of Sharing and Saving

From  2/20/13:

One of the most difficult cultural differences for me to deal with is the emphasis on sharing versus saving. Growing up, I was taught to share explicitely, but implicitly was the notion of personal ownership. Sharing something usually meant playing with it together, for mutual benefit, or loaning it out for a short period of time before getting it back.

In Cameroon, I remember the sharing versus saving conundrum being an issue with food. Pop tarts, which could compete against twinkies for outlasting the apocalypse do not go bad. I could put them in the cupboard and save them for another day. I was always afraid that one of my Cameroonian friends would open the cupboard though. In their culture, food is there to be eaten and shared not stored and saved. My fear is evidence that I knew of this implicit rule, but the fact that I hoarded the pop tarts anyway showed the strength of my own cultural practices and my inability to change (e.g. learn to share).

In Kenya, I have better learned to balance these opposing cultural forces through duplicity. When I travel to some city that actually has a store, I buy two packages of cookies, one for sharing and one for storing. This works fairly well for food. It is, however, a little more difficult with shoes.

I tried applying the culture of sharing to my last (and sadly demised) pair of flip flops. They were kept by the front door and people would borrow them and return them to their place. Though, progressively developing thorns and mud, the shoes finally started falling apart. Again, I tried to apply the culture of sharing while trying to extend the life of the shoes. I washed them, pulled out thorns, and duct taped (okay, that is more US engineering, but the theory is still the same) the straps back on. The problem with shoe sharing is that increased frequency of usage makes saving nearly impossible. Duct-taped engineering solutions are unfortunately short term. I finally gave the old shoes to the little kids to intentionally finish destroying and bought a new pair of flip flops and instituted a “share only in emergency” policy.

One such “emergency” occurred recently when my housemate, Stephan, needed to use the latrine but found his own sandals gone from their typical door-side location. Earlier that day, he had shared them with our neighbor (who is notorious for misplacing keys, soap, shoes, and consideration for others). Our neighbor had said he needed to use them to take a bath, but failed to bring them back. After one week of “emergency sharing” my own sandals with Stephan, I was feeling culturally ansy. I suggested he use my phone to call our neighbor and inquire about the missing shoes. The neighbor, hurt and disappointed by Stephan’s unwillingness to continue sharing his shoes assured him that he would return them; however, he also told the rest of the family about Stephan’s poor character and inability to share. Now people are even asking me to teach Stephan to share better. How am I supposed to do that?

You may think that pop tarts and shoes are silly concerns when it comes to cultural differences. These are just small anecdotes, but their implications are vast. Take the efforts of development organizations to teach people how to save money. This concept in itself is antithetical to the sharing values indicated by the shoe issue. If someone has enough money to put it aside and not use it at the moment, they are selfish for not sharing it with their neighbors. What if saving that money, the family could use it during the next drought? Maybe their child gets sick and their savings could pay for a doctor and treatment. Now, that family who is planning for an uncertain future is ostracized because their neighbor has a school fee to pay now. Shouldn’t they share what they don’t presently need?

If I share my shoes not, I will help someone without shoes to also have shoes now. Inevitably, the shoes will not last as long though and then we both will not have shoes in a few months. Can I watch someone else suffer so that I can pay rent next month or help them now and struggle myself in the future? I’m not sure I can find some sort of compromise or middle ground, but inevitably both cultures (and my own guilt) will look down on my decisions from one extreme or the other. Should I share or save? Can I manage both?

Pictures of me and the "kids"

I've been trying to load these pictures since December. Here goes!

Stephan and Peter

Peanut Butter the Goat

Kenyan Education System

It is really funny that what reminded me that I hadn’t updated my blog in a while was the threat of another teachers’ strike. Luckily for the students, along with Jimmy and I and our respective attempts to work with schools here, the strike was canceled when the government realized that they better pay the teachers what they had promised last year.

I am currently in the next town to the west hanging out at a restaurant with my computer. My house was connected to the electric grid a few weeks ago, then one week later the transformer in my neighborhood blew. Now, there is no electricity anywhere near my house and I don’t think they will fix it anytime soon. I went to the town below the hill where I live, but they told me the building where all the stores rent space didn’t pay the power bill last month so there is no power there either. Anyway, so I’m now camped out at this nice restaurant drinking cold soda and enjoying an excuse to escape into attempted anonymity. Anyway, the television is on here and there is a special program about education in Kenya on. How fortunate for me. So, while I work I am listening to politicians talk about education in Kenya…Definitely worth a laugh.

The Obama administration, and several other foreign dignitaries, made speeches congratulating the Kenyan president on having “free,” “compulsory,” primary education. The Kenyan government explained how much this means to the students here who have the opportunity to attend school. Now in program evaluation we know there is a difference between what is inside an accepted proposal and what actually is implemented. When the politicians describe “free” primary education, they mean that students can go to public primary schools here without paying school fees. This contradicts the crying child whose public school fees I just paid last week so that he wouldn’t get caned (beat with a tree branch). One student here added up all of his “school fees” that he has had to pay for public school so far this term and jokingly informed me that if he paid an extra 20 shillings (the cost of a small bottle of soda) he could have paid for private school. When the politicians describe “compulsory” education, surely this doesn’t mean the same thing as when Jimmy and I show up to a school where students have been “sent.” Students (often more than 75% of a school) are frequently sent home for things like lack of school fees, tardiness, answering questions incorrectly, or general cheekiness (a.k.a. behavior problems or boredom). My question to the politicians, how do you plan to evaluate and enforce free, compulsory primary education? So far, I would say that it is not working as well as intended. 

I won’t even talk about secondary education. Though, if anyone would like to pay school fees for an orphaned child here, I know a couple who still need help. You can pay through a program at the health clinic that is sponsored by the Santa Barbara Visiting Nurse and Hospice Care (http://www.vnhcsb.org/employees/). I think the school fees run from about $35-50 per year so it really isn’t bad from a US perspective. Here, it is ridiculously hard for families to afford though. It’s a short term fix that can help a student out now, but in the long run the government really needs to work on distributing funds and evaluating schools better on their progress toward affordable education.

Since I cannot fix everything (even though I thought I could in high school), it is back to evaluating programs where my reports will be read and changes will actually be made, albeit on a much smaller scale.

Safari and Teaching Adventures

As Jimmy and Whitney have reminded me, it has been ages since my last blog entry. Part of the reason for this is that I told my grandma I would write and post pictures while I was away and she passed away last month. Thus, I didn’t have the motivation to continue writing for some time, not to mention I was avoiding people and having to talk about it. I feel sad that I could not be with Mama, or there with my family, and I know it will be really hard to be back in CA without seeing her there. She was an amazing women, the queen of my family, and the best part of my childhood memories and visits home. Mama has always said that young ladies should live someplace different and go on adventures, of which she had many. How many young women of her generation had the courage to live in New York City with friends, drive across the country to go to college, go on road trips to Tijuana, start her own family and business, drive with her granddaughter all over California hunting for beanie babies and taking the search seriously, have a stroke yet crack jokes about joining the granny tap dancers for the Producers, and still laugh about everything? Not many. My grandma was one-of-a-kind! For her, and for my family and friends who are reading this, I’ll try to keep sharing about my adventures.

Since I last wrote, Jimmy and I enjoyed a safari trip to Massai Mara where we saw more animals than I could ever imagine. Grassy plains were covered with hundreds of migrating wildebeest (who acted a bit like Stetson in the turn-out, bucking and running). They shared the grass with zebra and all different kinds of antelope. Propped on their stout knees and partly under foot where pumbas (who looked and acted a bit like my first dog Iris). When they run, their tails point up like a flag to all the other pumbas so there is a small pig parade each time they startle.

In addition to the animals at the Royal Mara, Jimmy and I progressed from camping-like facilities in my village to the finest hotel and private “tent” I’ve ever seen. There were richly carved doors with images of zebras playing, a sun porch overlooking the river and a view of real hippos, crocodiles, gazelles, and monkeys swinging from the branches. When we unzipped the tent, we entered a palace complete with curtains around the princess bed. Hot water showers were also quite a treat after months of cold water bucket baths. There were even animals carved below the clear glass sinks and rhino-shaped toilet paper holders. I swear, they thought of everything. The food was pleasantly not kale and corn-based. Jimmy and I were served hot chocolate and tea in our own living area when we woke up in the mornings. We even went on nature walks in the afternoons where we felt like we were right up with the animals. It was an amazing experience that I’ll never forget. Jimmy put some pictures on facebook and I’ll try to add some to the blog when my internet connection is better. The pictures hardly do it justice, especially the sunrises, but they will give you a window into a fantasy world come to life.

When we returned to our home-away-from-homes, Jimmy and I found the schools back in session. The teachers ended their strike with the government promising the raises the teachers had hoped for. The teachers did have to compromise some, and the government still needs to follow through with their promises so my fingers are still crossed. At least the students get to return to school. In the US, young students do not have a concept of their unlimited access to education. I know we are still fighting for making college and university more available, but all children in the US can go to school at least through high school. Here, that is hardly the case even with the strike ending. “Free” public schools still send students home if they cannot pay to take exams, have a hole in their uniforms that they have no money to repair, fail to polish their shoes or do not have shoes, arrive even one minute late in the morning, or are at all disrespectful to their teachers. They are caned for any indiscretions and sent home. When I pass homes where students are not in school, I find them still studying or collecting wood or making charcoal to earn money so they can return to school quickly. School is valuable and people here know it is their chance to help their families and succeed in life. In order to attend high school, young students must do well on all of their exams. High school is not even “free” so they also must pay fees in order to attend. These fees can be more than half of a family’s income. I’m not even all that sure what they are paying for since I often find teachers in the break room eating while the students teach themselves. There are of course some amazing teachers here who are entirely deserving of a raise, but people often overlook the dedication of the students themselves and the role they play in making their schools successful. Cheers to the end of the teachers’ strike and a round of applause for Kenya’s students. May they inspire other young people around the world!

When the teachers’ strike ended, the amazing chemistry teacher I was supposed to work with for the health club did not return to school. She took ill and went to Nairobi and will hopefully return next year. In an effort to make the most of my time here, and get to know the students at the high school, I volunteered to take on some of her classes. So, I’ve been teaching high school chemistry which has been a blast (pun intended :) ). We did some great experiments on hydrocarbons and water while I did my best to teach using Model-based inquiry. I hope my attempts, or at least laughable effort, make my advisor proud. My first notable observation about model-based inquiry (which for my non-education grad school friends is basically let students figure out what is happening without telling them all the answers, then debate about their findings and inferences like real scientists do) is that the students first have to be okay with speaking in class. After a week of prodding and repeatedly assuring students that I won’t beat them for not giving “right” answers, I finally got students to discuss just their observations. Then, we had a discussion about the differences between observations and inferences. The next class, I had a few brave students volunteer to make some inferences and lo and behold, they naturally made models by drawing on the board to explain. Woohoo! After a couple more weeks of this, I finally reached a critical moment where one student asked me why I wouldn’t tell them the answer. We had a nice talk about model-based inquiry and had a great argument about how soap actually works. I think the students had fun and learned a lot even if I didn’t let on that my chemistry knowledge is based on what I myself learned in high school. At least, if anything, I got the students talking, thinking, and debating in class.

Lately, I have switched from teaching chemistry to teaching computers (although I manage to have each computer lesson involve science content to make it more fun for me…shhh). We graphed the way water reacts with different metals and made powerpoints on the elements. I realized that teaching powerpoint was a dumb idea on my part considering my poor students have never even done any kind of presentations before (except for my amazing chemistry debates). Now, I’m taking things back a little and we're doing some typing practice. If anyone has any ideas for what to teach on computers using Microsoft office (the only programs we have besides solitaire), please do share. I’m running out of ideas and don’t want things to get boring!

In addition to confusing students with my strange teaching methods and forced class discussions, my other accomplishments to date include finally learning to cook using the charcoal stove. Woohoo! I can now make several dishes that contain corn, fish, and kale and I attempted banana bread which after 5 hours had a consistency more like banana pudding, but was still tasty. I also taught some of the kids how to make pancakes which they learned about from watching the movie Matilda.

Jimmy has been doing an amazing job with his work in Isibania. While the position is supposed to be program management moving toward consultant type work, in my opinion he is really more like a superintendent plus teacher education department head. He seems busy with these roles, but is loving Nuru, his housemates, and the teachers he works with. Jimmy can definitely add to my crazy school rant and can tell you more about his program himself. I’m happy to report that he is doing well and definitely making a difference for hundreds of children in Kenya while still keeping up with UNC football games, talking to me every day, and making me smile.

Jimmy is coming to visit this weekend which I’m very excited about along with the rest of my village. They all love him here as much as I do. Then, there is a month left for me to figure out my research...haha. Jimmy and I will both be back in the US in December and we are looking forward to seeing everyone. Unfortunately, it will be a whirlwind trip for us. We’ll be in the Pasadena area from Dec. 6-8 and the Santa Barbara area from Dec. 9-11 (Ellie and Mal, can we crash at your place please?). Then Jimmy is heading to North Carolina and I’ll be in the Pasadena area again from Dec. 12-17 (plus a short trip south to Julian with my mom somewhere in between). Jimmy and I will be spending Christmas with his family in North Carolina then heading back to Kenya. I expect everyone to please clear out your schedules when I arrive and convert any holiday shopping plans to spending-time-with-Anne plans so that I can see you. I miss you all!