Uganda in Degrees: 2007

Imagine teaching in a school with only a room, a chalk board and some benches and tables. Imagine teaching from 7:30 am until 9:00pm, Monday to Friday as well as Saturday 7:30am to 1:00pm. Imagine teaching with no library, the only books available being government textbooks. Imagine teaching without a photocopier, without paper, except student exercise books, without art supplies. Imagine having electricity only half the time. Imagine every drop of water you and your students use has to first be hand pumped from the ground and then hauled in containers. Now imagine having computers and internet access at this school… Kashozi is such a school.

In my first month at Kashozi I have had to relearn almost every skill for basic living. As a child I had to learn how to feed myself, wash myself, use the toilet, when I was older I learned how to wash my clothes, cook food, and clean my house… all skills that I had to relearn in order to adjust to living in rural Uganda. I have also had to adjust to teaching without books and the other educational materials I am used to having access to, but this has been less of an adjustment for me because Kashozi has computers and internet access.

With access to the internet I have been able to find educational resources that add to and enrich the curriculum that I have found in the government textbooks, the only books that both the teachers and students have. But it is not just me, through working with the teachers on learning to use the computers many of the participants of my study have leaped into using the resources that they are learning to find on the internet.

So far it has been a tremendous learning experience for myself and I think many of the teachers that I have worked with.

Some of the teachers have moved from an original blatant curiosity of me and what I am doing on the computer (I had to learn that someone looking over my shoulder while I was writing a personal e-mail was not rudeness but just curiosity) to actively participating. It seemed that for some there was a necessary watching period that eventually broke the ice into questioning and finally participating and using the computer. This participation of the first teachers seems to have been able to pave the way for more shy teachers to come in and observe as their fellow teachers are working. For me learning to use the computer has always been about using the computer, but for many of the teachers at Kashozi, learning to use the computer begins with watching.

The enthusiasm for digital resources that I got from much of the staff at Kashozi was even more than I had anticipated. There was a critical moment with the headmaster in the first week. During the first month at Kashozi I have spent most of my time in the computer lab between the regular computer classes teachers would come in during their free periods and ask to see some of the digital resources that I had brought. In the first week one of the deputy heads, Benin, also a math teacher had come in and wanted to see the math resources, he seemed a bit overwhelmed at first with all the files so I asked him what his next Math topic was going to be, Algebra he said. I showed him the three algebra programs that I had. He was really interested and spent quite a while just playing the math program himself, after a while he told me that he wanted to used them with his class so we began discussing how it could be done. Through our discussion Benin started telling me what he saw the benefits to be: the program gave automatic feedback to the students, the teacher could track the students results by the score, and it was fun… This is when the head master came into the computer lab, he stood for a while behind us, watched and listened to our discussion. After watching he asked me if I had anything on mean, median and mode as this was his next math topic for his class. I showed him the programs that I had, after looking at them and then using them himself he decided that he would bring his class in the next period he had with them.

I frantically worked with the other computer teachers getting as many computers ready with the math program (how we had to do that is a whole other story of challenges!). The next day he arrived with his class and amazed me in his lesson, he taught his class as if he had been using the computer as an educational tool long before I arrived, though I was told that it was actually the first time. There were of course technical challenges and the fact that the high student computer ratio made it 4+ students per computer, but everyone, myself, the headmaster, the students and the other teachers watching, thought it was a success. That very day the headmaster got the schedule altered so that every class would go into the computer lab for each subject once per week, this means that the students who normally had only one period a week using the computers would now have 5, one for computer class and one for each of their four subjects. The teachers seemed to like the idea, though as it was a directive from their boss, it is hard to know for sure. There was one teacher who raised a very legitimate concern that there might not be anything that applies to the specific curriculum that is being taught in a week. I suggested that this would be less likely if they came in advance to plan the lesson, and if there was not yet something on the hard drive that was applicable or was useful we could try to find something on the internet or develop something ourselves. Unfortunately this message was slow to get through for some and many times teachers showed up an hour before their class or just showed up… I spent some time explaining how it required planning and that there might not be anything readily available, as well I tried to emphasize that I could take the class and I could teach them using the computer but my objective was to make it so that when I left the teachers could do it themselves and therefore the teachers needed to find out what worked for them.

After a week of this things straightened out a bit, but the timing was not great as the students were entering their exam period and most of the teacher kept their classes away from the computer room for revision. This exam period was followed by a school holiday, so due to the circumstances the momentum that was there at the beginning was somewhat lost. When some of the teachers and the grade 4-7 students came back for their extra classes many of the teachers are taking the time to come in and plan for lessons in the third term. However, after only 3 weeks they again left for another holiday before all the students returned. I took this somewhat quieter time to write descriptions for possible computer sessions for teachers to sign up for. It was a good thing to have done as after the holidays many teachers came in that had not before.

My research/work is going well, keeping me busy from early morning until late at night but I am enjoying it and I think that our work together is making a positive impact on the school.

I attended a "Giving Away" ceremony where a teacher at the school "received" his bride from her parents. This is an event prior to the actual wedding, which in this case took place the next day. The also have another tradition of the groom paying a bride price to the parents of the bride, set by the parents of the bride. Many people here were quite surprised to learn that men in Canada don’t pay for their wives... One of many things about Canadian women that has surprised people here!

Wedding related events seem to be very traditional here, at the beginning of the event we were given this thin cold porridge that most people seemed to enjoy…

A little girl seemed very interested in me and came and stood next to me for quite some time but was too shy to talk to me or to the person next to me who was translating into the local language.