Note: I wrote this blog a month ago but have since delayed in actually posting it. It still applicable and paints an accurate picture of the situation faced by many in my community. Enjoy.
Today, we had our regular staff meeting, which takes place once per term. The agenda to the meeting usually goes something like this:
1. Opening Prayer
2. Communication from the chair (Head Teacher)
3. Reaction to the chair
4. Reading of the previous meeting’s minutes
5. Reaction to the reading of minutes
6. The way forward
7. Closing prayer
This meeting usually takes a minimum of three hours (some have taken up to 6 or 7 in the past). There are no breaks. And lunch is not served until the meeting has concluded.
This staff meeting was the first to be chaired by our new Head Teacher, Mr. Okello Stephen. I was impressed by his effort to solicit feedback from the staff on ways to improve the school and also to bring that feedback to the Board of Governors hoping to impact some change in the future.
One of the main things I took away from the meeting was how difficult it is for some teachers in Uganda. I haven’t been able to nail down exactly how much my fellow teachers make but I’m told it rests somewhere around 400,000 shillings per month.
One of the problems my counterpart, Mr. Otuna Silver, brought up was the cost of transport. He says he pays 4,000 shillings for a one way trip to the school and another 4,000 back each day. Multiply that 8,000 round trip times five days a week and you’ve got 40,000. Multiply that 40,000 times four weeks per month and you’ve got 160,000 shillings spent on transport alone! That’s 40% of his salary. Imagine making $50,000 dollars a year in America and paying $20,000 a year on transport costs alone. Paying $20,000 for you alone, simply to get to and from work, from point A to point B and back again. It really struck me.
Considering the fact that Ugandan taxis usually take about 30 minutes to go 6 miles, some of these teachers spend two or three hours a day commuting to and from school. Taxis don’t even start leaving until around 7am so many teachers cannot even get to the school until around 9, even though school begins at 8 each morning.
In addition, teaching is tough. Mark my words, whoever said “those that cannot do, teach”, did not know what the hell they were talking about. Seriously, it’s one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever had. I just want to stand up and shake every teacher’s hand and praise him or her for the good work they do because it is no easy task. It is truly a science - one that requires you to constantly monitor your stakeholders (students) in several different dimensions. You must constantly be assessing their reaction to everything you say, do and teach. You must be asking yourself these questions constantly: Is this the most effective way to teach this topic? Do my students understand it? Which ones do? Which ones don’t? Why to both the previous questions? What can I do better? How do I adapt my methods to reach 90% of the students instead of just 70%?
And in Uganda: How do I reach a classroom of 92 students effectively? How do I hold their attention for an 80-minute lesson (the standard time allotted for a math or physics lesson in Uganda)? How do I get them to stay quiet and remain attentive? How slow do I need to speak? Should I / can I use British English or American English for this word? Do they even understand a single word I just said? Most of the time the answer is some do, some don’t. I have come nowhere close to perfecting my methods, but I have learned how to adapt and in some ways, have improved.
Yes, I mentioned we have a new Head Teacher at Kamuge High School. My former supervisor and good friend, Mr. Bulolo Christopher has taken his mandatory retirement at age 60 and has passed the torch on down to the next lucky soul to take on the administration that is the Kamuge High School Head Teacher. We had our formal Handover Ceremony last Friday. This consisted of a three and a half hour meeting in which the new Head Teacher was introduced to all the members of the school, including support staff such as the groundsmen, guards, cooks, secretaries, etc. Then the outgoing Head Teacher gave the incoming Head Teacher a very thorough tour of the entire school (we literally walked the entire perimeter of a 10 acre plot).
The tour was then followed by an hour-long session in which the outgoing Head Teacher read line by line each item in the current inventory of the entire school! Every desk, chair, table, piece of laboratory equipment, building, etc. I almost started laughing out loud when this started. “Are you freaking serious??!!” But that’s how they do things here. It’s just different.
The new Head Teacher had a chance to respond to all of this. Which was lovely. Then the Director of the Board of Governors stood up and talked for… a while. He went into great detail about how important the position of Head Teacher is. He elaborated how he and the board would not hesitate to take drastic action if the new Head Teacher did not perform well or began to “backslide”. I found this particularly interesting. But overall the tone of the meeting was very upbeat.
In a way I was kind of lucky. I had no idea how this whole Handover Ceremony would go and I was really curious what it entailed. Unfortunately it was just like every other meeting: started late, went on forever and with no solid conclusion or outcome. But we ate well!
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