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| A main road at the University |
We woke this morning and had some breakfast-toast,
pineapple, and mango juice (yum!).
We were feeling much better after sleeping for 12 hours. Enoch came and gave us a little tour of
Makerere University. We first
visited the bookstore, where the students who attend buy their books. It is much smaller than our University
Bookstore, but the books are still very expensive. We then went to the library, which actually looked pretty
similar to some of our college libraries.
I have been surprised to see that the students here seem very similar to
students in the States. They
actually dress similarly, walk around talking on their cell phones or with
friends, and some even have laptops that they use. I guess this goes with the quote (that I will describe in
more detail later), “Kids are kids internationally.” Enoch told us that nowadays, university students do not use
books much, because much of what they need can be accessed on the
Internet. He kept saying that they
have a poor reading culture. After
the library we walked around campus a bit and Enoch showed us the residence
halls for the students. There are
separate dorms for the boys and the girls, as well as residences for the
staff. With that said, many of the
students do not live on campus, but in the city and commute to school.
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| Library at the University |
Next we walked to the education building on campus to meet
with Dr. Gillian Kasirye (She is a doctor in the Department of Foundations and
Curriculum at the University and has also spent some time in at UW-Madison). Before meeting her, Enoch showed us
what a typical lecture room looks like.
It looked similar to ours, just on a smaller scale. He stressed that most, if not all,
university courses are taught in lecture form, with the teacher just talking
for the entire period and students taking notes, with no interaction between
students and teachers. We then met
Gillian. She had a wealth of
knowledge to share with us about the Ugandan school system. I will do my best to summarize what she
told us.
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| Education building at the University |
Students first attend Primary School. Primary school is what we consider
elementary school. And primary
school is “grades” K-7, or what they call Nursery-P7. So the way they say grade is P1 (first grade), P2 (second
grade), and so on. At the end of
P7 the students must then take a national exam that determines whether or not
the students can go on to do more schooling. If the students do not pass, they are either done with
school, or they can repeat P7 and try again.
If the students pass the national exam they then move on to
Secondary School.
Secondary school is like our high school. This is where things got a little fuzzy,
but I think there are four years of secondary school, S1 through S4. After S4, the students take another
national exam. If the students
pass this exam they can go on to Pre-University School where they prepare for
University. Also at this time,
depending on the scores of the exam, the students decide on a career path. Once the career path is decided on,
they are pretty much stuck with it.
If they do not pass this exam, the students can either repeat, chose to
get a certificate (similar to like a technical college certificate), or they
can stop with school all together.
If students go on to Pre-University, they complete two more
years of school. And once again
after these two years, they take a national exam that determines if they are
ready for university. If they pass
this exam they can go on to university.
If they do not, they may repeat Pre-University, go for a certificate, or
drop out of school.
Besides the national exams that the students take before
moving on to the different schools, the students also take exams after
completing each year of school. If
a student does not pass these exams, they must repeat that year in school. As can be expected with the importance
of the exams, there is a lot of stress put on the kids, parents, teachers,
administrators, and schools for kids to pass these exams. Gillian stressed that everyone is
ALWAYS thinking about the exams. The
pressure is so much, that teachers teach almost directly to the exam. Telling the kids everything they know that
will be on the exams and the students memorizing these things. Gillian expressed that this leaves very
little room for natural curiosity or opportunities to experiment, question, and
explore, as is so important in the development of a learner. In addition, when the teachers teach
directly to the test, student-teacher relationships are poor. The teachers don’t take the time
(because they don’t think they have it) to get to know their students both as
learners in the classroom and as individuals outside of it. Students also do not interact or
communicate much with their teachers, as the teachers do all the talking. In this way, the classrooms are very
much teacher-centered. For us,
this means that the students are not used to being asked to share their ideas
or their thinking, something that we stress so much in our education, so this
will be a challenge that we will be working towards overcoming in our
classrooms. And finally, the exams
leave no room for extra curricular activities or even elective/specials courses.
Another interesting topic that Gillian touched on was the
fact that most of the teachers in Uganda do not actually want to be
teachers. She said that it is
likely that most of them did not pass their S4 exams that would have allowed
them to go on to Pre-University, so they got a certificate in teaching as a
fall-back. In fact, Gillian
believes that only about 1% of the people that are teaching actually chose it
as their career. This is mainly
for the reason that the profession just doesn’t pay enough. And as I think we all know, when we
don’t love what we are doing, we don’t give it 100%. The problems this creates in the classroom are significant,
as the teachers never go above and beyond what is scripted for them to
teach. The teachers receive a
script of everything they are to teach every day, and the teachers read directly
from it, write the notes on the board (which are the exact same as what was
read), and then read from the board again. This obviously leaves the students bored and uninterested,
which often results in students dropping out of school. It is also notable that not all kids
attend school. Gillian said the
recorded number is that about 85% attend, but Gillian thinks it’s closer to
75%. She said the main reason a
child does not attend school is related to money. Even though public schools are free, parents are unable to
buy uniforms, books, and so on.
Gillian explained that the school system is just a vicious
cycle, because if a teacher were to try and change how they teach then the
students will fail the exams. So
even though they know it’s not right, it’s just how the system is and they
don’t feel they have the power to change it. It through small efforts like bringing in teachers from
other countries (us!) , that schools are slowly being introduced to different
ways of teaching. And because the
school we will be teaching at, Rwentutu, has had several student teachers from
my same program as well as others from Canada, Gillian tells us it is not very
reflective of a typical Ugandan school.
Despite all the differences in our education system and the
Ugandan, Gillian left us with some words of advice. “Build relationships with the kids, some of them need
it. Hold a child’s hand, it might
keep them in school another year.
Do what is right. Don’t let
the system bring you down.” And my
favorite thing she said, “Kids are kids internationally,” a statement that has
proven true over and over again just in the few days we have been here, and one
that will probably stick with me forever.
After finishing our meeting with Gillian, I was left feeling
both excited and nervous about starting at the school on Monday. The way she described the kids left me
completely excited, but the challenges that I know I will face in the school
also left me a little nervous. It
helps knowing that the way we teach is highly respected, but it also puts the
pressure on! I’m looking forward
to just starting and not having to keep guessing what it will be like!
Following our meeting with Gillian, we headed to our lunch
destination. On our way there I
had a bit of a scare/shock. We
were stopped in traffic, as is frequent when driving through the city, when a
man came up to the right side of our van and started gently pounding on
it. This of course caused everyone
in the van to turn and look at this man and watch him, and while everyone’s
attention was on him, a man came up to the left side of the car (where I was
sitting), and grabbed at the necklaces I was wearing. I let out a little yelp and instantly grabbed towards my
neck, not really sure what was going on.
I looked out the window and saw a man running away and in my lap sat one
of my two necklaces. What I pieced
together was that the men must have noticed my necklaces while sitting in
traffic and sent one man to distract us while the other reached his hand
through my half-open window to try and steal my necklaces. Luckily he did not get either of them,
but he did break one of them, the cross necklace that was given to both my mom
and I before I left. It left me
pretty rattled for about an hour.
I became much more aware of my surroundings, and ended up taking my
other necklace off. And I did not
ride with my window down for the remainder of our time in Kampala.
For lunch we went to a restaurant that served the
traditional Ugandan cuisine of matoke (a different kind of banana that is
picked before it is ripe and then is boiled or steamed), rice, beans, Irish
potatoes (same as what we call potatoes), sweet potatoes (different from what
we call sweet potatoes), fish (thus far has always been tilapia), cabbage,
ground nut soup, greens, and cornmeal-and, yes all of this was on my
plate. Out of all this food, what
I am finding most enjoyable are the rice and beans, the Irish potatoes, and the
groundnut soup.
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| Uganda Museum |
After lunch we went to the Uganda Museum. It was definitely interesting and I
appreciated learning more about the country’s history. And because we had Enoch with us, we
did not have to read much at all, as Enoch served as our own personal tour
guide. He simply used the images
and objects in the museum as his talking points. We learned the history of the people, the government,
politics, clothing, cooking, tools, hunting, leisure, and so on.
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| Craft shop in Kampala |
We then stopped at a craft shop, where there were all kinds
of bags, jewelry, decorations, knick-knacks, and so on that we could buy. Enoch told us we would only be window-shopping
today and that if we wanted to come back here when we return to Kampala in October/November
we can make purchases then. Katie
and I are anxiously waiting to return to buy some gifts!
Our next adventure for the day was to see a cultural dance
and music show. On our way to the
show, we stopped at Enoch’s brother in law’s house to drop off some food he had
brought with him from Kasese.
While we were waiting for Enoch, a little neighbor boy climbed right
into the car with us. This was our
first interaction with children and we couldn’t stop smiling at the little
cutie! Across from the house there
was also a group of boys playing soccer.
It was refreshing to be a little ways out of the city and to get a
glimpse of what life is like more in the country.
We then arrived at the dance/music show. The show was entertaining, beautiful,
and long. The show lasted three
hours and consisted of traditional Ugandan dancing with lots of hip shaking and
stomping and clamping, music throughout with all sorts of unique instruments
(especially drums), and jokes from the host who also happened to be the town mayor. The final dance of the evening, the
host invited everyone down to dance.
Katie and I were reluctant, but we made it out on the dance floor only
to be showed up by Edson’s amazing dance moves!
There is a short video below to give you an idea of the music and dancing.
Yes, all of this happened in one day. Every day so far has been
jam-packed! So as usual, Katie and
I were exhausted and went right to bed.
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