Teaching in Burkina

Besides the myriad other challenges to integrating into my village, something that continues to stump me is the cultural regard toward teachers, and how I, as a secondary-level teacher, am supposed to interact with my students and my community. Most of my best friends in village are other teachers, and I spend more time with them than I do anyone else. Where does that put me in terms of my community?

I guess the biggest day-to-day question is how I'm supposed to interact with my students. As a student in America, I always regarded teachers as not being like normal people in a way, like they weren't supposed to exist off of the school campus. It was weird if I saw them at the grocery store, for instance. At the same time, teachers acted personable in class and told jokes and talked about their family. But it's kind of the opposite here. Generally, a lot of teachers are very unpersonable and unsympathetic in class. Part of that is undoubtedly due to class size; it takes a rare personality to be able to manage 80 14-year-olds in a cramped classroom and be loose and friendly at the same time. But part of it is just the culture.

At the same time, it's a small village, and you can't help but see your students outside of school everywhere you go. I think all of my students know where my house is, even though I never told any of them. I guess it's not that hard to find the white person when there's only one white person in the whole village. Sometimes they come over to my house in the late afternoon to ask questions, which is something that would never happen in America. Also, I am apparently at liberty to make students do things for me outside of class, like pump water or run errands for me. I asked the other teachers how it was supposed to work with the kid who pumps my water 4 days a week, and they said it should be "an honor" for him to do things for his teacher, so I don't need to pay him or act particularly grateful. But that just feels weird. I pay him $2 a week, which doesn't sound like much but is a small fortune by village standards, and I always thank him, but still I always feel a little weird when we interact. Also,when I go to class, the students are supposed to run up to me before I get to the classroom to carry my bag and anything else I have for me. A lot of times, 2 or 3 of the students run up and fight over who gets to carry it. Weird...but whatever.

On a different note, something I tend to forget is the fact that the other teachers at the school are not there purely as volunteers for the development of their country, so I can't expect them to selflessly give up their time for projects the way another volunteer would. In America we often complain that teachers deserve to be paid more because their work furthers the future of our nation; on the other hand, here, teaching is one of the highest-paying professions anyone can aspire to, so it's kind of not as noble. There are people that go into teaching solely for the money and not because they particularly care about kids or the future. In talking to other volunteers, I've heard too many stories about teachers that steal money from their schools or who overreport the number of hours that they put in to get overtime pay. I am really lucky with the teachers at my school for a number of reasons, not least that all of them seem to care enough at least to be honest. At the same time, sometimes I feel impatient that they don't all go the extra mile on projects even if they're not paid. They are some of the most educated people in the country, and I feel that that gives them a special responsibility to help others as well. But I have to remind myself that for some of them, it's just their job, and they have a right to only give 100% at their work. I should stop judging them.

3 lycée regulars that I can always count on to hang out with me: Bakyono (French); Moumouni (history/geography); and Zabré (math/biology).

I find the way that the government arranges the distribution of teachers around the country a little odd. Teachers don't get to pick where they'll get sent, and while they can indicate a preference for the next year whenever they fill out paperwork, ultimately the government can put them wherever they want at any time. Generally the most desired posts are in large cities, so it tends to be the younger and less experienced teachers in villages like mine. For me, I am fine with that. I can't judge the quality of their teaching, but for the most part my teachers seem really motivated and excited to help their students. The fact that teachers can get moved around like that, though, means that they tend to leave the village frequently on weekends and during breaks, especially for those whose spouses live out of town. (None of the married school staff members' spouses lives in my village.) Also, they can sometimes find themselves in villages where they don't know the local language, which makes integration and life in general more difficult. The word for white person in the local language is nasaara; they use that same word to describe teachers. For them, it means foreigner, someone who is not like the rest of us.

Yet another problem is the fact the government tends not to send as many teachers as the schools desperately need. English is a required subject in secondary school, for example, but my friend's school does not have an English teacher, so the students are just screwed for the test they'll have to take to graduate middle school in a few years. My school was lacking a surveillant, which is kind of like a vice-principal and is something all high schools are supposed to have, until December. The first guy that the government sent was mentally off. Like, he didn't talk. He just sat there and stared blankly. Seriously. Sometimes he would kind of mutter to himself, and that was the most that anyone ever heard from him. Our proviseur (principal) sent him back after a week, and it took another month before we got our current guy. He's no genius, but he's nice enough, and he can talk at least.

Something that I find reflective of the general mentality toward education is the fact that a passing grade is 50%. When I was in school, I always aimed to get A's, and I always hoped for 100%. But here, all that anyone wants is to get above 50%. The very highest grades that I've seen in terms of trimester GPAs have been around 85%. Averages tend to be around 10-11 out of 20, which is what we're supposed to aim for, and that's what teachers teach to, and that's what the students will still think is sufficient when they go to look for a job as adults. How can a country make progress if all that you're aiming for is half?

Another friend and volunteer, Lindsay, recently wrote a nice blog post about other challenges to development work in Burkina, in case you are interested. Click here to read.