Bonjour à tous!
I hope this message finds you all in good spirits, and enjoying the holiday season. You’ll have to enjoy it for me, as I’m finding that life in a tropical climate with marginal fluctuation in seasonal weather (the “hot” seasons, then the “more hot” seasons”) does little to reign in the Christmas spirit… though I have taken to listening to my Manheim Steamroller Christmas album.
For this update I decided to address more of the “what”, as in the “what-the-heck I’m actually doing here for my work”. Evidently I hadn't clarified this enough for people on my e-mail list, so by popular demand…voila! This is just as well, because since my last update my life has been mostly filled with work projects that have allowed me to experience the sticky and swampy lagoons of southern Togo to the arid mountains of the north.
TEACHER TRAINING
So to describe what I do… The short end of it is that in Togo I’m not really doing as much teaching of English, but rather teacher training of Togolese English teachers in secondary schools. The long end is that in reality I’m doing a million different projects all surrounding that theme. Like I mentioned, I’m based in the national teacher training office, called the “Direction des Formations”, which is a branch of the Ministry of Education. I’m on a team of 4 Togolese English teacher trainers, and together we put on weekly workshops for the local English teachers. We focus on training the teachers in more current pedagogic strategies, such as interactive, student-centered learning, critical thinking, large class management, pair/group work, as well as many other tools to make the classroom a more dynamic place then the rote-learning, authoritarian experience they currently are. It's a real flashbacks to more archaic, Catholic boarding school-style teaching methods. In some classes, of which I have yet to observe but have heard about from Peace Corps volunteers, teachers respond to wrong answers and misbehavior with smacking/beating with sticks, or made to stand on their knees outside. As you can see, there's work to be done. Few Togolese teachers are able to get any (and I mean ANY) training in teaching. Most of the English teachers may have studied English at university, and were subsequently thrown into the fire. With little pedagogic knowledge, and a WIDE disparity in English skills, teachers here are super appreciative of any kind of training available. Also they have so little to work with. Some teachers are lucky to have classrooms, but many are in bamboo hut-like contraptions built on the school grounds. Powerpoint/overhead projects? Forget about it. Photocopies for students? Not a chance. Class sizes? 80-120ish. Just the fact that this is the reality of everyday work for these teachers makes them all heroes in my mind.
BUREAUCRATIC BURDENS
This has also come with its frustrations, because in doing so I’ve been given the crash course of West African bureaucracy. Somewhere down the line, some guy with an inferiority complex (I blame the former French colonial officers) decided it would be a brilliant idea to install an ultra-hierarchical system for logistics where you couldn't ever talk to someone without first meeting and talking to all the people of lower ranks. Even more, this same insecure, possibly French colonial officer also thought that the best way to do any kind of logistical planning was to mandate that before you do or plan or talk to anyone/thing you had to send a letter ahead of time. But of course not to the direct person, you send it directly to the head guy, and that trickles down to the person you actually want to talk to. Confused yet? Let me give you an example. To do our trainings in Lomé, we had to first send a letter to the minister of education, with hopes that he would then forward that letter to all the inspectors (kind of like the superintendents here), who would then forward that letter to all the school headmasters (principals), who would then notify teachers there was a training. Of course that has as much chance of succeeding as sea lion in the middle of an Orca pod (Alaskan reference… means “unlikely”), so at the same time you do that you have to talk to the teachers, who talk to their headmasters. Then you also send another letter to the inspectors, who again talk to the headmasters. After all of that, you eventually end up with about a 50% turnout rate to a workshop in one of Lomé’s districts (which still equals about 50 teachers, so great!).
My favorite part is the ritual of every time you go to a school, or district, you have to visit the headmaster of whoever is the highest ranking person of the area, and then request a meeting. He will usually make you wait about 10-15 minutes later then your scheduled meeting because I don’t know, it gives him some kind of power trip. Then you go in, and ever-so-graciously thank him for meeting you and humbly make your request to give his teachers a free training (insert irony here). He of course is not looking at you during this process, but instead is furrowing his brow as if he is actually in serious contemplation about the benefits of “granting” you permission to do your work. Of course he’s always planning on saying yes because no one in their right mind here would turn down free assistance, but why say that right away when he can pull a power trip on you and make you think that HE just granted YOU a favor? Anyways it’s been a real trial in patience.
TRAVELS AFAR
Other than that, I’ve also been lucky enough to travel around the country a bit with the US embassy, doing the same kind of pedagogical trainings in different regions. If Lomé’s teachers don’t receive much training, the outer regions are in even worse shape. The other funny thing is hearing the inspectors (aka superintendent-like people) who were trained in what seems like the 1800s, impart their sage advice on teachers. Certain gems like, “you should not vary your teaching methods; we do ‘systematic teaching’ here, which means that you need to do the exact same thing in class every day”. Or the other logic of “we are francophones, and because of this we shouldn't give examples for language rules in class; once you hear a definition you should just remember it”. My personal favorite was when one of the inspectors was giving feedback to a teacher he just observed, he started with “well there’s no reason to tell you what you did good, because what you did good is already good, so I’m just going to tell you what you did bad.”
On the other extreme, I’ve also observed many teachers who are practically magicians in the classroom. They seem to effortlessly guide 120 twelve-year-olds through dynamic activities that are both fun and also leave them with stronger English skills (and for all of you who have ever been a middle-schooler, you know that’s no easy task). In particular, the Togolese on my teacher training team are real superstars, and I feel so lucky because every day I learn new things from them. So it’s a place of extremes, but that is Africa in a nutshell. Other small projects: I’ve been doing some work with Peace Corps, most recently a couple weeks ago when I did a few trainings on large class management, and promoting gender equality through teaching. I also am doing a huge country-wide evaluation of a teacher training program funded by the US embassy, which has been a big reason I’ve been able to observe teachers all over the country. Finally I also serve as an advisor for the Togolese English Teachers Association. I help with the planning of their meetings, where sometimes I conduct mini-workshops on teaching. Oh and I do the same kind of thing for a University English Club/Leadership club.
All in all pretty cool stuff. Actually more than cool, this is probably one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. Sometimes I need to pinch myself, because I’m getting to do the exact kind of stuff I’ve always wanted to do: travel around a country in African working on educational development projects. It allows me the opportunity to see education in Togo from many different angles, and to interact with all the players of the game, from students to teachers to administrators to government folks. So really I’m ecstatic.
OTHER FUN STUFF: Went on a day fishing trip with the Ambassador and Embassy security officers, where I "may or may not" have gotten sick all over the side of the boat... however completely unbeknownst to the rest of my party as, in my determination to not toss cookies in front of the ambassador (and thus appear feeble), I chose an opportune moment to do so while they were distracted by a bird... Mission accomplished! Also went out dancing on the town, only to have the nightclub DJ fall asleep in the middle of the night, and need to be woken up by a patron to put on another song. Also experienced a fireworks show of a lightening storm in a small mountains town of Atakpame. Here's my sappy post I put on facebook: "Totally had a 'moment' the other day: sitting in a palm-covered rooftop bar lost in some small mountain town in Africa, soccer playing on the tv, red and orange sunset bleeding across the sky, the dark curtain of nighttime falling, thundering rainstorm and lightning flashing all around me for hours, illuminating the entire valley... One of those moments where the fast-forward button on life momentarily stops and you find yourself aware, if ever so briefly, of how completely alive you are in this moment in time."
But this message is already a book so I’ll wrap it up. I hope all of you are doing well and getting ready for holiday festivities, and know that I’m thinking of all of you from my hot and humid, sometimes sticky apartment…
Much love,
Phil Dierking
