The school day begins with all the
students lining up in alphabetical order by grade in the courtyard. When the
teacher gives the okay, the students file into their perspective classrooms and
wait. When the teacher arrives, the entire classroom stands, recites a prayer,
and then formally greets both the teacher and I, only sitting down after the
teacher has dismissed them. The teacher then begins reviewing the material
learned the day before, calling on students who are expected to stand and
recite the correct answer. Giving the wrong answer in unacceptable, and a
student who answers incorrectly must stand for the rest of the review.
The review is generally followed by
French. While most children speak Wolof at home, the official language of
Senegal is French. This means that all instruction is delivered in French. Many
students can speak French fluently, but most still need to learn grammar and
punctuation. Children take turns copying their work up on the board until the
teacher decides to move on. This continues throughout most of the subjects
during the day. Students are given a half hour recreation period every day to
release their energy and run around, and an hour for lunch at 1:00. Most
students eat at home (cheaper than buying food at the canteen) so children are
given an hour to travel back and forth.
It’s interesting to observe the
change in behavior between when the students are in class, and when they are at
recreation. In class, under their teacher’s supervision, they sit up straight
and raise a hand to answer every question. At recreation, there is no
supervision. Teachers stay in their classrooms, correcting papers and planning,
and the students are given free range to do whatever they want. Children sprint
in every direction, every which way, usually colliding hard every once in a
while. Many boys wrestle in the sand, and the girls play a dancing game, which
ends with the loser getting smacked in the middle of a circle by all the other
players. Students are screaming and yelling, and then the bell rings. The
teachers come out of their rooms, the students line up in their lines in
alphabetical order, and they all file back into their class. There seems to be
no connection between the motivation driving them to behave in class, and the
motivation driving them to behave when out of the teacher’s sight.
Wow, what a different system to the US and England! Were you surprised when you first went into the classroom? Would you say the children in Dakar are about on par with those from the States for each of the subjects? I'm just curious to know if this teaching method works well. I could never see this going well in an American classroom, neither during lessons or at recess. I'm also always surprised when children are left without supervision. Here in England, children move from classroom to home, break/playtime, and lunch without supervision or concern at all from adults. I guess this teaches them independence, though.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like a fascinating experience to be in a classroom so different from the ones we have experience in the US and my classroom in Spain. I was shocked to read about the morning routine at your school and how disciplined it seems the students are when they are in the classroom. Did you have any students that misbehaved? Do you think the motivation for their behavior comes from cultural norms? Parent teaching? Or from the school system? I like the idea of a "morning review" in which the students can spend time thinking about everything they learned the day before. However, making them stand if they get the answer wrong seems cruel and embarrassing. I wonder how the school handles students who struggle to learn for different reasons, were there services or additional assistance for these students? Or did the students undergo the same process as all of the other students? It sounds like an amazing opportunity to be in a place with such a different method of teaching.
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