INTERLUDE III

LETTER TO DAR

Dear Margaret:

Instructions received from Sharon at our recent All-Volunteers Conference direct me to complete a report on my work during the past three months, to submit it to the headmaster for his comments and signature, and finally to forward it to you. The form provided in the Conference packet is written in terms of the “project goals, objectives and milestones” that were first presented to us at this unhappy affair. Since my work during the last quarter, and indeed even since arrival in Tanzania, was necessarily done in total ignorance of these illusory milestones, I find it impossible to use that form.

Allow me instead to write in narrative style a summary of what I did during the past year. I hope that you'll be kind enough to transfer anything relevant onto the form and mail it to the headmaster. My assignment is to teach A-level physics to outstanding students at a model school; this is what I did and will continue doing. The school is Ilboru Secondary, it's in Arusha District, and its headmaster is Mr. Mtui, all of which you already know far better even than do I.

When I arrived, my form-five students were being triple streamed by a teacher who was responsible for all A-level chemistry and physics instruction. Ten periods each for five chemistry and five physics streams, plus four of the form-four physics streams also on his schedule, add up to 104 periods, far more than the 43 that comprise Ilboru's week. Obviously no one could come close to doing that much teaching, and, as a matter of fact, he wasn't trying very hard. In the two weeks that I observed him during training, he offered only four A-level classes, one each in physics and chemistry for each form.

I asked to have each stream scheduled separately for ten periods weekly; this was done. It was well into September last year, however, some two months after the term officially opened, when I started teaching regularly, beginning with the topic assigned to me by my counterpart. It was soon clear that many previous topics in the syllabus needed additional work, so we essentially started over at the beginning. Except for two days’ work on standing waves that the most recent trainees lacked time to present, we are ready to begin the study of electromagnetic theory, the essence of form-six physics as I understand the syllabus, when classes resume for this second year. This result was achieved by consistent hard work, extra classes, and the deliberate postponement of most practicals until form six. I also gave a dozen or so extra classes last year in chemistry for my PCB students.

The teaching strategy I have found most effective at home is the Socratic dialogue, essentially a one-on-one question and answer discussion between teacher and student; it is obviously impracticable with groups of 25 or so students. Next best is a modular approach, in which students individually pursue carefully specified learning objectives and demonstrate “mastery” of them by taking and retaking unit tests until one is passed at a prespecified level of performance, quite typically 90%; study of the next module then begins. This approach requires facilities well beyond those available at Ilboru, and indeed at most American secondary schools I suspect.

The mode in which I did teach last year amounted to little more than a brief lecture-discussion with carefully written notes on the blackboard for students to copy, working of a sample problem or two, and then presentation of problems for them to work at their desks. I used as many appropriate problems from old national papers as I could, because my students are so highly motivated to work on them. This last phase is the most important because then I can wander around the room, chatting with individuals or small groups, and occasionally even approach a Socratic dialogue. Monthly written exams are mandated by the headmaster, a unilateral decision that is strongly resented by the teachers I know best here.

At this time it seems particularly appropriate to conclude with a summary of my living arrangements during the year. In the interval between negotiations for a house at Ilboru and the arrival of my group, there was a change in headmasters, and Peace Corps was not assigned the large house originally agreed upon that would easily have accommodated two Volunteers. Instead I was assigned to a much smaller unit that required a month's wait and several hundred dollars of personal funds before becoming livable. When a second Volunteer was assigned to that house–you had said only a few weeks earlier that I could not live with anyone else–I moved to a downtown hotel where my personal expenditures were several thousands of dollars. Subsequently two youngsters from England were also assigned to the house. A few days after their arrival, Timothy left Ilboru under most unfortunate circumstances, so it became their private domicile. But now dear, patient Margaret, we must move on to the current year, for Sharon has also ordered a plan for the next quarter; I believe she later amended this to the current term. Again my total failure to understand milestones renders the available form hopeless, and I must once more request your kind assistance.

The same Ilboru house is again available, so far as I know today. A week ago when I first talked to him about it, the headmaster said it was empty. When I first entered it yesterday, I found it was not; four students have been using it as a dormitory. Evidently they were there to guard the national furniture, but when I had originally asked about the need to hire an askari during my absences, the headmaster and his chief assistant laughed raucously at my naiveté. When I was trying to locate a key yesterday, the second master assured me the house had been adequately cleaned. Even from the outside, when I arrived, it was evident that nothing had been done for months; two dozen of my students required an hour just to remove the most obvious filth and debris. When I left, the inside had been improved to being simply totally dirty, but the outside was still a complete mess. Why do authorities here give voice to such untruths when the contrary facts are so glaringly apparent? Do they want a Volunteer at Ilboru, or do they not? And where are you from the Peace Corps staff charged with finding suitable housing? Do you no longer care either?

One agreement Mr. Mtui and I reached at our first meeting is evidently being honored: I will conduct classroom teaching, the theory, for both forms five and six, and Mr. Kimaro will assume responsibility for all the practicals for these same students. He will certainly do a far better job than I could in the laboratory he knows well; I hope to do as well as he can in the classroom. If our busy schedules allow meeting and conferring occasionally, that will be an improvement, perhaps even what the plan labels a milestone; if so please place it on the form beside the appropriate number.

I’m now scheduled for 24 periods weekly, which is a good start, but regrettably all the PCM are double streamed. My objective is to meet each stream separately for three double periods weekly. Even such a scheduling genius as Mr. Kiringo may find it impossible to fit a 36–period assignment into the school timetable, however. Alternatively, I'll attempt to schedule more classes in late afternoon and on Saturday mornings and continue my practice of slipping into classrooms when I notice the scheduled teacher is not there.

I intend to proceed this year much as I did last year. It will take a week to get acquainted with the form-five students and another week or two before we work together comfortably and efficiently. If the house is indeed available tomorrow morning, we will get underway a month earlier than last year, so all should go well.

There was another form in the conference packet from Sharon–she is a most prolific source of paperwork; has she no concern for trees?–that suggests you plan to visit my classroom, evidently to compare my lesson plan, written on yet another of Sharon's forms, to my actual performance. Although the nature of your position certainly makes you free to come, I must inform you that I have never in my life used such a device, and I have no intention of doing so now. Certainly objectives and procedures are always clearly in mind, but they are weekly or even term-long in scope. Effective teaching, in my judgment, requires sensitivity to the rate at which students understand, to their questions, and indeed even to their moods. I can't predict, in ten-minute increments, what will actually be accomplished in a physics classroom. If you and Sharon and Susan can do that, you're far more prescient than I. In my classes tomorrow begins where today ends. If you really wish to evaluate my work here, I suggest that you talk with my students. Perhaps Peace Corps could even provide them a few sodas each during your chat in partial payment for the time they have wasted being practiced on by trainees.

If you investigate my comings and goings to and from Ilboru, you will likely discover that I no longer invigilate, nor take roll, nor do I act as teacher on duty; I tried all three here, in good faith, only to discover that not one of them improved my teaching effectiveness and all wasted my time. You may also find that I have never watched my form class clean, or garden, or chop wood, or be class on duty, and of course I have never caned anyone, to ascribe that antiquated form of discipline to its British source. Mutual respect and confidence are the hallmarks of my relations with students, not fear and suspicion. If somehow my example could persuade teachers and administrators to change these procedures, then you would have reached a milestone worth painting white and topping with a flag of victory. It is much more likely, however, that such insolent attitudes will result in my dismissal; the headmaster has already demonstrated his proficiency at quickly ridding the campus of a no longer wanted PCV.

Margaret, I think that even you may find this hard to believe, but yes, there is still another form in the packet that must be mentioned, one on which to evaluate the conference itself. No, I won't fill it out either, but not because I can't; I just don't want to write down that many negative comments. It was, to be totally direct and completely honest, the most dreadful such affair I've ever attended, and during a lifetime in academia, I went to many hundreds. Even the three months of training here, abysmal though they were, seem like a Sunday afternoon picnic in comparison.

To begin with the agenda was ridiculously overcrowded, and its organizers totally failed to serve the unique personal needs of individual Volunteers and trainees. Surely even the Peace Corps can distinguish the ludicrous, gray haired, retired professor teaching A-level physics near Arusha, from the lovely young lass practicing some form of environmental law in Dar, even if both do claim Seattle as home. Why then in God's name cannot the Peace Corps recognize them as individuals, each with specific assignments and needs, rather than as two of many pins locating worksites on a map of the country? Certainly to date the Tanzanian branch has been unable, or unwilling, to do so.

But it's the proposed plan for the coming years, ill conceived, poorly written, inadequately introduced, and never explained, that is totally depressing. To emphasize training of teachers rather than teaching of students makes good sense, but particularly in science education, I believe that American experience during the last half century, nearly, suggests that starting at the elementary level is much more productive than introducing change at the secondary level, as this plan intends to do. Perhaps Peace Corps officials could speak with their counterparts at the National Science Foundation; my taxes continue to support both organizations. But to ask those of us already teaching here to retrain our Tanzanian counterparts in modern teaching methodologies, during after-school hours, on weekends, and between terms is absolutely insane.

First, we're pretty busy already, especially those poor kids, a vast majority of us, who are just out of college and have never taught before; quite a few have only one or two years of study in the field they have been assigned to teach. And are our counterparts from Tanzania standing around asking to be retrained? Hardly, at least not at Ilboru. Surely the plan's authors must know that teachers here are so pathetically poorly paid that if they do return to school after-hours, it's to do private tuitions for extra fees, and they quite regularly miss scheduled classes to care for gardens, look after livestock, and tend to other income-enhancing schemes. Unless the Peace Corps pays them to participate, they are not going to join clubs, participate in seminars, and take out-of-town classes. And for the country director to say in response to a question, “I know they're poorly paid, but I can't do anything about it, so let's ignore it,” is simply to admit that this part of his plan is doomed. I think it is good for the organization that he is leaving Peace Corps/Tanzania in a few weeks, although I have enjoyed him very much as an individual.

In spite of all its negative attributes there was one really exciting aspect to this otherwise totally dreary affair: I was allowed to give each of my granddaughters a welcoming hug, and not even a true African Babu could wish to be acquainted with a finer set of six young women. It was also very pleasing to get reacquainted with the other fifteen guys remaining in my group, two of whom have married here in the year since training, although two or three of them were almost unrecognizable after shaving their beards and trimming their hair.

It took only a casual glance around the buildings and grounds to verify that the group with which I was privileged to come is far and away the best currently on Tanzanian turf. I still miss Joe Caputo–he was so kind to me during staging in Chicago and those first days in Arusha–but I can easily understand how that special friendship that developed in the year between applying and being assigned turned out to be more important than he realized when leaving home; he had the good sense and courage to resign early in training. You know better than I what resulted in Ray's disqualification from service, but he came right back to Tanzania and is still working with computers in Dar. So the group remains basically intact. If you'll promise not to make me attend another conference, I'll promise to quit bragging.

Oh, and I almost forgot, I did manage a grudging minute with Dr. McKay, who favors the bug-bite origin for the Nairobi eye syndrome. My own opinion now, wishing to be charitable to all and especially not wanting to be on the opposite side of any argument with Nurse Edith Elizabeth, is that there are two sources of the eye inflammation endemic to East Africa. Some may be viral in origin, but mine was definitely caused by an insect.

My stay in East Africa has been informative, to say the least, and although only a very few of my objectives in this part of the world remain to be met, I would enjoy finishing out the year at Ilboru, but it will have to be on my terms. When that is no longer possible, please don't hesitate to recommend termination of my appointment; I will then move on very happily to one of dozens of activities still on my life agenda. If it is intended to put a second person in my house while I'm still there, please let me know that as soon as you can.

I would like to think it's the surprisingly intense religious milieu here, but I'm afraid it's more likely my advancing senility, that has resulted in my memory's turning back to boyhood in a Baptist parsonage, actually several of them. For whatever reason, I recall the seventeenth verse of the fourth chapter of a letter from Saint James to somebody, as it was cited in a version authorized by a king of that same name, in which a rather astonishing assertion of culpability is made: “To him who knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” I doubt that I've ever really done much good, but I have certainly tried to do so in my teaching. I intend to continue, but only so long as it remains fun.

Well Margaret, so long for now, and best of luck with all those forms.

Cordially,

W. Vance Johnson, PhD

Professor of Physics, Emeritus

20 Aug 93