The First Week of School

I would be lying to you if I told you that I just got back from the end of my first week of school. This is mostly because I got back several hours ago, and by the time I began writing this blog, Trano Sokola, our apartment, became victim once more to unannounced power shedding. But national electricity problems aside, let me tell you about my first full week at Lycée Jean Joesph Rabearivelo (JJR). I warn you, my poor reader, that it will be a lengthy blog today. But by the end, I promise you will know what it means to be in my classroom.

I could bore you about logistical details such as I work 8am-5:30pm Tuesdays and Thursdays as well as 7am-4:30pm on Fridays. I could tell you that I have 18 classes that range from seconde to terminal, 10th to 12th grade. I could tell you that each class is about an hour long and that there is English club on Tuesdays and Thursdays during lunch. Indeed, I could tell you about all sorts of things that you may find interesting but wholly useless in creating a proper image of what it is like to work at a school in the heart of Antananarivo. So, rather, let me just tell you how it went.

I left my apartment around 7:20 on Tuesday for my first day. It takes about 30min to walk to JJR from my apartment in Mahamasina. At this early in the morning, there’s limited traffic and venders are just beginning to set up their stalls. It’s actually a pretty tame walk compared to the usual “walk or be walked on” style of roaming the streets of Tana. Once I arrive to JJR, I walk through a tiny door into the massive school yard. JJR is nothing more than a collection of large rectangular buildings with two school yards. I tried to draw an outline of the school, but failed miserably doing so. So here are pictures of the school yards.

In these school buildings are tiny classrooms with old wooden and metal desks, most of which are falling apart, and a blackboard at the far end with a raised platform and desk for the teacher. I think it surprises and scares the students that I don’t use the desk. In fact, I am a very mobile and dynamic teacher, unafraid to speak at a high volume all of class and to make gestures, change my tone, and call on students at random. It’s a very unpredictable classroom, which is necessary for the number of students I have.

Anyways, my first task is to go the sale de professeurs, the teachers’ lounge (picture below). That is where I spend all my breaks except for lunch where I escape to a peaceful food court, a small garden of silence in the busy city. At the teachers’ lounge, I look for my assigned teacher for the first class of the day. I didn’t know for whom I was looking. At this point I hadn’t met the majority of my colleagues. Nonetheless, I figure that I stand out enough, being the only white person in a half-mile radius of campus, and sure enough, Helihasina finds me and immediately begins to apologize profusely. Why? Because no one in the administration informed the students that they had class at that time. In the laymen’s term, the classroom where I was supposed to be was completely empty, ghost town, dead and desolate. Let me explain.

High schools in Madagascar do not function like they do in the United States. In the States, each teacher has his/her room where he/she receives students on a personalized schedule for each student. In Madagascar, each room belongs to a class who take the same classes together, and the teachers are tasked with traveling from room to room with anything they need. More importantly, teachers also have to find where the room is in the first place. I have discovered that this means that no teacher knows where any classroom is because there is no organized layout of the school. I probably had 6 teachers stop at least 3 times throughout this week to ask a student (yes, a student) where a certain classroom was. But that’s besides the point because, as I have told you, no one informed the students they had class at that time. So, no one was there. This happened three times the first day, which is half of my classes that day, and another 2 times the other two days.

Eventually I was brought to a classroom for the next period. Now, you may recall that my description of what I am supposed to be doing is to aid the English teachers in the classroom. That is, I’m meant to be a support and tool for the teachers already teaching English. The manifestation of this fantastical plan in reality is nothing short than non-existent. What I mean by this is that nine times out ten, I am in the classroom by myself with all the students. The remaining one out of ten times, the English teacher is sitting in the back either not paying attention or just watching what the heck I’m doing. To put this in perspective, I am now “responsible” for 18 classes ranging from 20-50 students each where I am given no curriculum standards to fulfill, no lesson plans to follow, and no cares given to what I do in the classroom. In short, I am a literal god in my classroom with the freedom and license to do whatever the heck I darn well please.

I should clarify that I do take my job seriously. I make it abundantly clear to students that I am there to help them speak, something which they are deathly afraid of doing. My class is only a supplemental class. I am not their only English teacher, nor their primary one. They will not practice grammar or writing exercises in my class. Rarely will they hear me use complex linguistic terms unless I’m speaking to myself, which can happen. And they will always have to come to class prepared to speak because that is all they will be doing.

To continue my story, I enter my tiny classroom, walk through a narrow aisle as students stand to greet me and remain standing until I order otherwise, ask a student to wipe the blackboard clean (a common practice here), and begin my lesson. I can confidently say that I have successfully snatched the title “Mr. Bald” from my father. Most Malagasy students just call their teachers “teacher” or “professeur”. But not my students, and they know it. I write my name in the top corner “Mr. BALD”. The Malagasy capitalize their entire last names because there is no strict rule whether the family name is placed first or second. This approach avoids the problem altogether.

“Good morning class,” I say. “When I say ‘good morning class,’ you will respond, ‘good morning Mr. Bald.’ Do you understand?”

I get nervous head nods as I repeat the instruction and then, once they kind of grasp the idea, repeat, “good morning class,” perhaps 3-4 times. This is the first time many of the students have ever heard a native English speaker speak in person.

From there I tell them about our lesson that day, an introduction exercise followed by a game I call “either/or”. But to start, I want to ask them a question. I write, “how are you?” on the board and ask the students if they know the meaning of the question. After a few nods, no Malagasy student dares speak out loud, I start asking students at random, “how are you?”

I get a lot of nervous “I’m good”, “I’m well”, “I’m good, thank you,” etc. Every now and then I get a show-off, “I’m wonderful, thank you. How are you?” 90% of the time I get, “I’m fine”. Ugh! I write “fine ≠ fine” on the board which confuses my whole class until I explain that in the United States, when someone says fine, they don’t usually mean fine in the technical definition. Whether it stuck or not is not my problem. But they do know that fine means not bad but certainly not good. I just wanted them to come up with better answers. I then introduce them to an informal way of asking the question, “hey, how are ya?” which they all find very entertaining and produces several choruses of laughter as I go around the room interrogating students with the new question.

We then move into an introduction exercise where they give their names, where they live, how old they are, something about their family, and one activity they like to do. It’s not really a great exercise, but it was my sneaky way in gaging how much, or, in most cases, little, English they spoke. Those who spoke little or terrible English would struggle. Excellent students would show off to the new teacher how well they could do this basic exercise, always adding an extra sentence here or some flare over there. This also allows me to easily identify troublemakers or, more realistically, the posse of boys in the class. Paradoxically, many of the boys who cause trouble or make noise are actually good students. I have a theory that they are just bored, but that could just be my sympathy for being the king of side-talk in the classroom, myself, all of which, I promise you, is related to the topic at hand at any given moment in the class.

This exercise also gives me opportunity to subtly communicate several important things about myself and my expectations for the classroom and their advancement in English. For instance, I can spot common mistakes or problems, such as forgetting to make sister or brother plural or that in America we call it soccer and not football. And my favorite.

I write on the board:

“I am_____ years old.”

“J’ai____ ans.”

This is where it gets good because it’s usually the first moment my students realize that I speak French. This means that they could possibly rely on French with me, but it also means that speaking French behind my back is no longer an option. Moreover, this little detail allows me to get into more philosophical aspects of language. I explain to my students that in French age is something you possess or have. In English, it is part of who you are, part of your very being. It’s sticks most of the time.

But after these corrections and some phonetic exercises where I literally just repeat the sound of “-ing” and then have them say something like “singing” or “dancing”, which is always quite comical, we move on to the primary exercise, a game of “either/or”. The game is simple enough, I ask a question, which I always write on the board, “which do you like more/better?” I provide two options, basketball-soccer, and depending on the answer, students move to opposite sides of the room. There, they practice a response, “I like ___ more/better than ___.” And then the real question arrives. I write up on the board three terrifying letters, W, H, Y; why?

“Why do you like ___ more/better than ___?”

I give my students time to come up with several reasons. This is the meat of the lesson where I can start evaluating their critical thinking skills, or lack thereof in some cases. It also lets me see what kind of vocabulary they have as each class gave very similar answers, not based on their actual thoughts, but on their limited oral English vocabulary that restricts their ability to communicate what they could actually say. I tell them to speak only English, which never happens. So I roam around the room and listen to students discuss. The posse of boys is typically my first stop because they usually speak in Malagasy. Naturally, I join their group and hit them with some witty comments in either English or French that tease one or two of them.

It seems like a strange strategy, but its rather effective. Socially, it connects me with the students on a more personal level such that they feel more comfortable with me. On the other hand, teasing in a small group is not the same as humiliating a student in front of class, which is simply a horrible idea. And so in one foul sweep, I neutralize the boy posse problem by establishing social dominance in the classroom, solidifying classroom authority, and subtly letting the class know that it is okay to have fun but that we are there to learn above all else. I’m not a sociopath, I promise. I just get what I want and study human behavior.

The options for “either/or” are also carefully selected.

Basketball-Soccer: because they are the most common sports played in the school yard.

Sleeping-Dancing: common responses in the introduction exercise and known vocabulary.

To wake up early-To go to bed late: Malagasy people wake up early, but Westernized parts of the city like to stay up late.

Pizza-rice (vary): pizza is an international food and rice is the primary source of, well, everything in Madagascar.

This last one is also important. When I write it on the board, I’m sure to write vary, the Malagasy word for rice first and then ask the students for the English. It shows the students that I’m at least a little aware of their culture and generates a good laugh. It also keeps them on their toes because now, it is possible that I speak at least a little Malagasy. In fact, one girl was trying to say “cheap” and simply couldn’t say it right. I looked at her and tried to make it out before I finally asked, “are you trying to say mora?” Mora is the Malagasy word for cheap/easy. A look of surprise and shock came over her face as she said, “yes!” Suddenly, Mr. Bald, the white teacher from America, was using Malagasy words, not very well pronounced, but enough to make students think, “well, maybe we can’t speak Malagasy behind his back either.”

And this is what we do until my hour-ish with them is over. At the end of class, I give them a better introduction to my class. I clarify that we will always speak, that I will use standard American accent, that we will play games, and that they must come to the class prepared to speak. The students then stand as I thank them and wish them a good day. And on my way out, I ask a student, usually one of the boys in the posse, to clean off the board for the next teacher. I repeated this just about 13-14 times this week seeing as 4-5 of my classes just didn’t show up.

The first week at school made me aware of many things. I could focus on the disorganization of the school and the teachers, but honestly, I’m not there for them. Instead, I’m there for my students, of which there are plenty. Nonetheless, this blog has gone on long enough, and it seems that a more thorough discussion of my students would be appropriate later on. For now, I think it is right to say that my first week at JJR was a good one. There is definitely plenty of time between classes. It’s good that I bought several thick books, because that is what I do most of time. There is a lot of silence in these times. So maybe I named my blog correctly after all. As always, know that you are in my prayers each morning. All I ask is that you do the same for me.

May God be praised.