End of Term Tirade.

Having recently entered into the third toothbrush phase of my time at Nanthomba School I finally feel adequately prepared to evaluate my experience. After five months of cabbage, and crowd control, I have the following things to report: I’d kill for an ice cream sundae, the kids are great, and there are mosquitoes breeding in the toilet.

Reflecting on Term 2: The good news is that, by and large, the kids are willing, capable, and interested in learning. The bad news is that most of them are failing. Still. The way I see it, the reasons are structural. It is no surprise that these kids are falling through the cracks by the handful when they’re up against an educational system that seems intent on seeing them fail. The curriculum is designed like a CSI episode – each lesson self-contained with no basis of what came before or what will come after; no chance to build understanding. [Can I venture to surmise this might be cultural?] Instead of climbing the Ladder of Knowledge, students are left leaping from stone to stone across a river of poverty and teenage pregnancy trying to reach the promise land of secondary school.

But who am I to say? There are some who would (and have) swoop down onto Nanthomba School in traditional Malawian attire - pretending that means they're culturally accepting - and mix one part Classroom Police with two parts Angel of Education to lead wayward youth unto the light.

And Manna and free ballpoint pens rained down from Heaven. Amen.

Instead, lets talk about success. (Baby.) Focused, as we are in the western world, on achievement, it is easy to imagine that not making it across the river can only mean certain death. A subscription to My Value Judgments Weekly is only one click away and inadvertently we end up teaching kids that anything other than secondary school equals failure. Certainly we should encourage academic performance. Certainly we should reward high achievement. But to discount and demonize alternate paths and lifestyles is a failure on our part.

*I just got out of a staff meeting - Can you tell?