It is only within the past two or three weeks that I have started to get a feel for this work, the challenges and opportunities it presents. In part, the reason for this is that, when we first arrived, the public schools were in between terms. Then it took about three weeks for the new term to truly get underway. Sadly, there is a self-perpetuating cyle in the local schools: the teachers do not always come in the first few weeks because they say the children will not come; and the children do not come because the teachers are not there. Reportedly, attendance at school is consistently inconsistent throughout the whole term, but for those first three weeks it is particularly poor. To quote many of the KEO teachers in reference to the public schools, "They are still organizing."
My first visit to Nakaale Primary School was highly educational--for me, at least. A few days before, there were some kind of local elections. Based on my conversation with Koryang, one of the KEO teachers, I think that the elections were for an office like parish (think county) judge. Evidently, there had been "corruption" of some kind with the Nakaale voting process, so they were holding the elections again. When we arrived at the Nakaale Primary school, there was a small canopy set up as a voting booth and a growing group of people waiting for the voting to begin. As a result of the elections, there were also no classes at the school that day. We still taught the weekly Bible story to a group of children and intrigued bystanders, but it was not the typical primary school experience. If there is such a thing as a "typical experience" working with KEO.
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| Nakaale Primary School |
The other public school to which we go is Alamacar (pronounced Ah-lah-mah-char) Primary School. While Nakaale Primary is maybe just under half a mile from the mission compound, I estimate that Alamacar is roughly a mile and a half. Alamacar tends to be better run than Nakaale, although, again, it took them a few weeks at the start of the term to organize. On my first trip to Alamacar, there were four or five stuents in the P4 (4th grade) classroom and maybe eight or nine in the P7 classroom. We taught the weekly Bible story and gave a short health lesson. And by "we," I mean the Karimojong KEO teachers; I was still in the active observation phase.
A few words about the primary schools in Karamoja. First of all, tuition for the public schools is free. Typically, there are still some miscellaneous costs associated with attending school. For example, students must provide their own writing instruments, workbooks, and textbooks. Officially, the students are also required to buy a school uniform; however, if a student shows up wearing somthing other than the uniform--which the vast majority of them do--no one seems to care. Now, the cost of a pen and workbook (i.e. a dozen or so sheets of lined paper stapled together in booklet form) are far from prohibitive. Textbooks, certainly, are more expensive, and I have yet to see a student with a textbook. All in all, though, a student could attend Alamacar Primary School for free. The cost of school supplies (necessary or unnecessary) is more of an excuse than a reason to not attend. And, sadly, it is an excuse that is frequently used.
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| General Assembly at Nakaale Primary School |
Attendance, as I said, is consistently inconsistent. Often, students who are old enough to be in the primary schools show up at either the preschool or one of KEO's village outreaches. Why? I can't say exactly. Maybe because they like the variety. Maybe because they don't see the value in school. Maybe because we at least have teachers who are trying to teach.
One day, at Kopetatum, I found myself trying to teach the letter rotation to a group children whom I'd guess were around 10-12. Because they were older and were clearly more advanced than our normal preschoolers, I tried to give them words to spell out on our slates. Imagine: a muzungu (white person) who has been exposed to the language for barely four weeks trying to remember as many Ngakarimajong nouns as possible so that a handful of eager children can try their hand at writing them out. Thank the Lord Ngakarimajong spelling is phonetic! One student was particularly quick and also knew enough English to call, "Another one!" whenver he finished and I approved or corrected his spelling. In reality, he may have been the only student in that group who actually knew how to spell; most of the others just tried to copy off of his blackboard. As I corrected a student's sideways rendition of a letter, I figured that they were at least getting practice writing. But I digress.
Over the past few weeks, I have gone to Nakaale Primary School once or twice a week. Usually, we send a team to Nakaale on Monday and Wednesday and a team to Alamacar on Tuesday and Thursday. Public schools in Uganda teach a "Religious Education" course. Purportedly, the religion taught in this class is Christianity, although the older grades are also supposed to learn about Islam. From my reading of the textbooks, though, I would say that the religion presented is Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. (If you are unfamiliar with that term, I highly recommend looking it up. I am too verbose as it is to include a description in this post.) At any rate, the local public schools are more than happy to allow us to come and teach Religious Education as many days a week as we are willing.
Over the past 10-15 years, the pastors on the mission have written and translated hundreds of lessons of Bible stories from Genesis to Acts. Many of these lessons are formated into neat, 8-page booklets, complete with small pictures and a memory verse in English and Kjong. Many are not. That is one of the things that I do: I format these lessons into booklets that we can then take to the primary schools. We try to choose stories for the primary school classes that are either directly referred to in the Ugandan Religions Education textbook or coincide (to some degree) with the moral lesson presented in the unit. For the younger grades, we often bring pictures that go along with the Bible story. Since the older grades are supposed to be taught in English, we muzungus can try our hands at teaching as well. Martha thinks it is helpful for students to hear a native English-speaker read in non-Ugandan-English.
I am starting to think of P6 at Nakaale as "my classroom." I have also taught once or twice in P5, but P6 is my favorite. My first day in the classroom, there were only four students. That's the most I've ever seen in P6. The advantage of the smaller class, though, is that everyone can individually get practice reading. Oh, and it is much easier for me to learn their names and get a sense of who is is struggling. Korobe reads fairly well in both English and Ngakaramajong. Lokiru can read but only slowly. Lorot is in the middle.
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| The P7 Classroom |
In my mind, our task in the primary schools is two-fold. First, we are simply giving the students the opportunity to read. Remember, I have yet to see a textbook in a classroom here. The booklets we use in our program are the students' to keep. They can take them home and continue to read about David and Jonathan, about the Parable of the Talents, about the Lord's Prayer. Whether they do or not is obviously not up to us, but at the very least, in those 45 minutes, they can practice. Secondly, we are trying to share the good news of Jesus Christ. In every lesson that the pastors have written, there is a point of connection to Christ. My hope and prayer is that God will use our work in the primary schools to reveal Himself to these students.
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