A lot of my students are very sick. East Asians would say that they have a weak qi 氣. One of these student passed out quite a while ago, and I didn't see her for two, three weeks. I was told that she has a heart propblem. Could it be epilepsy? What is epilepsy? She came back last week, and I was glad. But today, while I was teaching an adjacent class, I heard this large thump and a roar. All my students dashed out to see what's happening, and I soon followed.
I got myself through the crowd of students to see her, sobbing as she sat on the floor, with her legs spread straight forward and her head down, much like one of those pouting dolls. Though a lot of people were watching her, very few approached her. I was confused. I had to be careful with my actions, as she is a girl, and physical contact between opposite sexes can cause controversy. I am also very ignorant in these emergency medical situations, so I hoped that another teacher, who was teaching in the class, to take initiative. He hesitated, so I stepped up. I pointed to a couple of healthier looking girls to carry her to the office, but with the given chaos, there was some delay in action.
Suddenly, I heard the words "in the name of Jesus Christ," really loud in Swahili. KATIKA JINA LA YESU! This may sound comical, partially because of the light tone of the Tomzanian, but it sure wasn't. I have realized that two of the more religiously inclined students were performing exorcism on this hijab wearing girl.
I was shocked. Could she really be possessed? I am a Christian, and I have attended very conservative churches in the past (in fact all my life), quite often listening to tales of exorcism. Some very vivid tales indeed, and I believe them too. I am also aware that exorcism is present in the Tanzanian Christian culture, often portrayed as a part of a story in television drama.
Upon the act, she didn't exhibit any of the reactions that I have heard or seen about exorcism. No yelling, cursing, nor shakes. She just cried as she did before. But then one of the boys grabed her chin, and continued his passionate attempt of exorcism. Her sob became a large wail, and that's the last of her I saw in the classroom.
Was it my impulse that led me to flee the uncomfortable situation? I wanted to make larger room for her, so I tried to disperse the crowd. and by thus, leaving the scene. She was eventually taken to the laboratory to calm down, and went home later.
It was just really confusing.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Role Reversal
A key feature foreigners claim as their's is the ability to be dumbfounded by a local cultural experience, remark on its strangeness, and blog about it. For example, about eight months ago when Daufiki was still an infant, his mom busted out her breast to feed him in my presence, to which I was at first surprised, then thought how strange (and big) it was, and almost blogged about it.
Yesterday on my way to the market, I passed by some students and a former colleague. I thought it would be a nice gesture to share something with them, so I gave them a passion fruit each.
They were at first a bit surprised, looked at each other with a smile, and after a short pause asked "how am I supposed to eat this?"
You just peel it with your teeth or you take it home! Can't you just acknowledge it as a nice gesture!
I wonder at times how stupid we foreigners must look.
Yesterday on my way to the market, I passed by some students and a former colleague. I thought it would be a nice gesture to share something with them, so I gave them a passion fruit each.
note its thick skin
They were at first a bit surprised, looked at each other with a smile, and after a short pause asked "how am I supposed to eat this?"
You just peel it with your teeth or you take it home! Can't you just acknowledge it as a nice gesture!
I wonder at times how stupid we foreigners must look.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
I just saved 753819752 hours of labor
Writing report cards is a bitch without a computer.
Grading itself is an extremely laborious task, but transforming exam results to individual report card is even worse. Due to its immense work, it was completely neglected back in 2009. In other words, the parents did not get their children's report cards.
Grading itself is an extremely laborious task, but transforming exam results to individual report card is even worse. Due to its immense work, it was completely neglected back in 2009. In other words, the parents did not get their children's report cards.
Having participated in this week-long exercise, I knew even some knowledge of the computer will help. I was given the task to fill out report cards from last year, so I put some daydreaming into action. If you are wondering now in the middle of the school term, it is because the Form II students' national examination results were not posted until early 2011.
The task would have been easier on Java or Matlab, but I don't know Java, and I didn't want to install 2GB of Matlab just for this purpose, so I turned to the more pedestrian Excel. From here on it's a bit technical, so you should read on only if you are teaching at a secondary school in Tanzania, suffering from similar forms of inefficiency, or bored.
So this is the report card for my school. As you see the "zoezi" is the average of weekly tests and the mid-term exams, and the "jaribio" is the final exam. Then they are added, and averaged. "Maoni" means comments, ranging from very bad to very good. The sections with 1-11 on the right are character assessments, which is where students are arbitrarily judged on their cleanliness, morality, and ability to answer dumb questions. They're also ranked within the class, the rest below are comments from the teacher, what the students owes the school, and other stuff like that.
This is the "zoezi" section. I got the results from the Academic Office, and inputted all the data points manually.
This is the bs character assessment, also manually inputted.
With the information on the previous three, and some excel functions, most of the imformation will be automatically filled in after writing in the name of the student. There are some parts of this section that needs some manual inputting as well, but they're quite minor.
I want to share this with as many people as possible, so if you're interested I'll email you the file.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Corporal Punishment 2
A year ago I never thought I'd turn into a corporal punisher. I admit that I use the stick because my words aren't good enough to motivate my students to do their homework. Some who oppose corporal punishment in Sabasaba say "it doesn't work," "the ones who get lashed are used to it," and "i just talk to them."
Well, it works, and the result is INCREDIBLE. A lot more students are doing their homework just because they fear the violence I would inflict on them. Sure they copy each others' work, and sure only three weeks in the semester there are daily culprits. Well, what I'm seeing is better than last year, and it's not like I have a miracle whip.
I also have a lot of fun out of it by teasing those who give me lame excuses and those who try to dodge in a funny manner. I usually hit them on the hand so sometimes it looks like they're dancing like MJ as they dodge. I hit pretty hard, but the pain doesn't last too long. I've been hit before in '96 when corporal punishment was legal and widespread in Korea. For about three months I managed to avoid the violence, but afterwards I was borderline regular / occasional, and I began to feel less pain. Thus, based on this extremely biased experience, I don't feel guilty when I hit them.
I feel bad for teachers in developed countries who can't use corporal punishment, how do they motivate bad students?
Well, it works, and the result is INCREDIBLE. A lot more students are doing their homework just because they fear the violence I would inflict on them. Sure they copy each others' work, and sure only three weeks in the semester there are daily culprits. Well, what I'm seeing is better than last year, and it's not like I have a miracle whip.
I also have a lot of fun out of it by teasing those who give me lame excuses and those who try to dodge in a funny manner. I usually hit them on the hand so sometimes it looks like they're dancing like MJ as they dodge. I hit pretty hard, but the pain doesn't last too long. I've been hit before in '96 when corporal punishment was legal and widespread in Korea. For about three months I managed to avoid the violence, but afterwards I was borderline regular / occasional, and I began to feel less pain. Thus, based on this extremely biased experience, I don't feel guilty when I hit them.
I feel bad for teachers in developed countries who can't use corporal punishment, how do they motivate bad students?
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Sabasaba Secondary School
This post is designed to make my blog come out in the first page of google when searching "sabasaba secondary."
It doesn't work.
UPDATE: IT WORKS!
It doesn't work.
UPDATE: IT WORKS!
The Sachs - Easterly Debate
This one's dedicated to two of my dear friends who have walked similar paths of TCK, Macalester Academics, and awesomeness as I did, KabCity and ADT.
I wonder if Sachs and Easterly really hate each other. Sachs is up in Columbia, while Easterly is in NYU. They have different opinions on their visions of development, and was quite open about their disagreements publicly via book reviews / rebuttals / etc. I'm not quite aware of the full extent of the debate, as I don't have a crush on either one of them. What is similar though, is that they are authors with serious Economic backgrounds, making their books quite dull and overly reliant on statistics - i.e. hey I did this regression and it shows that i'm correct, disregarding the reliability of the measurement, the direction of casuality, blablhallbstuffstatisticsnerdsliketotalkaboutblabh.
Ah, I digress, the joy of writing without a coherent outline. Though problematic in its parsimony, I'd like to present this debate using the metaphor of a tractor.
1. Jeff works in the development industry, and upon a survey of a dirt poor village, claims that what those people need is an awesome tractor. Upon return, he pulls out all these population statistics all over the world, uses various ratios to find out how many tractors are needed to save the world, finds out that it's about three times more than what the rich countries spend on ODA, and then holds hands with Bono to yell "we can do this."
2. William works in the development industry, and upon a survey, sees that tractors are used as playgrounds. In another case, he sees a farmer who learned how important a tractor is, took up loans, bought a tractor, used it for a while, fixed it a couple of times, and managed a living.
I would describe Sachs' approach as detached materialism. His vision of development clearly focuses on material goods - buildings, products, tractors, and most importantly, capital. He often ignores the role of people, institutions, outsiders, governments, culture and other non-material entities, as if the reason for poverty is what is most visibly evident - the lack of material goods.
Sachs' approach is also detaced, much like a scientist experimenting on his subjects. The scientist, the observer, is not part of the project, not accountable to the results of the petri dish, and partially deaf to what the petri dish is saying. This is quite evident in the various Millenium Village Projects, the product of Sachs' visions. The website boats its efficiency and cost-effective measures, but it never mentions how many UNDP staff are employed - possibly millions in wages, insurance, air fare, living stipend, education stipend, etc, compared to the peanuts spent in the village.
Easterly envisions development to be integrated to the economy. The economy endures and continues. Material goods are part of the economy, but so are maintenance, sellers, advertisers, and regulators. More importantly, it also includes concepts such as incentive, long-term planning, personal investment/effort, and ownership.
Much reptition has been made on the Sachs - Easterly Debate. It's its first appearance on the Tomzanian, so I give the score:
Sachs 0 - 1 Easterly.
I wonder if Sachs and Easterly really hate each other. Sachs is up in Columbia, while Easterly is in NYU. They have different opinions on their visions of development, and was quite open about their disagreements publicly via book reviews / rebuttals / etc. I'm not quite aware of the full extent of the debate, as I don't have a crush on either one of them. What is similar though, is that they are authors with serious Economic backgrounds, making their books quite dull and overly reliant on statistics - i.e. hey I did this regression and it shows that i'm correct, disregarding the reliability of the measurement, the direction of casuality, blablhallbstuffstatisticsnerdsliketotalkaboutblabh.
Ah, I digress, the joy of writing without a coherent outline. Though problematic in its parsimony, I'd like to present this debate using the metaphor of a tractor.
1. Jeff works in the development industry, and upon a survey of a dirt poor village, claims that what those people need is an awesome tractor. Upon return, he pulls out all these population statistics all over the world, uses various ratios to find out how many tractors are needed to save the world, finds out that it's about three times more than what the rich countries spend on ODA, and then holds hands with Bono to yell "we can do this."
2. William works in the development industry, and upon a survey, sees that tractors are used as playgrounds. In another case, he sees a farmer who learned how important a tractor is, took up loans, bought a tractor, used it for a while, fixed it a couple of times, and managed a living.
I would describe Sachs' approach as detached materialism. His vision of development clearly focuses on material goods - buildings, products, tractors, and most importantly, capital. He often ignores the role of people, institutions, outsiders, governments, culture and other non-material entities, as if the reason for poverty is what is most visibly evident - the lack of material goods.
Sachs' approach is also detaced, much like a scientist experimenting on his subjects. The scientist, the observer, is not part of the project, not accountable to the results of the petri dish, and partially deaf to what the petri dish is saying. This is quite evident in the various Millenium Village Projects, the product of Sachs' visions. The website boats its efficiency and cost-effective measures, but it never mentions how many UNDP staff are employed - possibly millions in wages, insurance, air fare, living stipend, education stipend, etc, compared to the peanuts spent in the village.
Easterly envisions development to be integrated to the economy. The economy endures and continues. Material goods are part of the economy, but so are maintenance, sellers, advertisers, and regulators. More importantly, it also includes concepts such as incentive, long-term planning, personal investment/effort, and ownership.
Much reptition has been made on the Sachs - Easterly Debate. It's its first appearance on the Tomzanian, so I give the score:
Sachs 0 - 1 Easterly.
I am unfair with the use of imagery, but so is my commentary.
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