Good news. The long-promised blog post about international poverty is currently being written. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a bit difficult to succinctly discuss the problem of extreme poverty in the world, and I think it’s going to take an entire blog post to itself. In the meantime, I wanted to write an update on my time at Friends Secondary School Lusui.
The Basics
Founded in 2007 by a local Quaker church group as a free secondary school for orphans, the school has quickly grown. It open with only one class, freshman, but has since grown by one class per year. This year will mark the graduation of the school’s first senior class. Each year, with the addition of a new class, a new wing has been built to house the necessary students.
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| Care package to the above address. Anyone? ;-) |
Now the school is government run, has 12 teachers (9 full-time, 3 student teachers), a Principal and Deputy Principal, an Accountant, and a Secretary. It also houses about 220 students. 76 in form 1 (freshman), 42 in form 2, 43 in form 3, and 65 in form 4. The school has also outgrown its ability to offer free education to its students. The total cost per year for each student is about $70-$90. Although this is a relatively small fee in the US, many students are unable to attend the school because of lack of money, and current students are often behind of their fee payments. But more about this later. About $10 of the fees paid is for uniforms, $50 is for the school lunch that is provided every day, and around $25 is for a district development fund.
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| Student's in my Form 1 (freshman) class working on math problems. |
The students put in long days. Students must arrive at the school before 6:45am, and then spend 15 minutes cleaning the school grounds and readying it for the day. At 7:00am, they spend an hour reviewing for class, which starts at 8am. Spared the early wake-up call, teachers usually arrive around 8am and start their classes. The day consists of 11 40-minute class periods, a ten and 20 minute morning break (the second for tea), and a 50 minute lunch break. Classes end at 4pm, and students have an activity hour until 5pm and then head home. All told, it’s usually a 10 or 11 hour day for the students, and more if their walk to and from school is lengthy (some students walk more than half an hour each way).
Opportunities and Growing Pains
As a young school, Friends Secondary School Lusui faces a number of challenges, but also has a high opportunity for growth. Here a quick rundown of both.
Challenges
- - Around 70-80% of the students have an outstanding fee balance. In the past two weeks, about 40-50% of the students have missed class-time because they were sent home to find money to pay their school fees. (Statistics come from surveys and discussions with the school accountant)
- - The tight budget means that teacher salaries are not always regular, which contributes to teacher frustration and absenteeism. As does the fact that students are often at a variety of levels of understanding, and are in an out of class in search of money to pay for their education.
- - The school is without electricity, a science lab, a library, or even enough classrooms to house the elective subjects (where one grade level splits into two subjects for a 40 min period).
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| Put simply it's a young, poor school with a lot of unrealized potential. |
But it’s not all bad.
Opportunities
- - The students are motivated to learn and dedicated to the school. They may not always have money to pay for fees, but they are determined to get an education and better their lives, and show it through the hours they put in attending classes.
- - A dedicated Principal and Deputy Principal shape the day’s activities and provide a strong future vision for the school. Principal Newton has been with the school for about 4 years, and is dedicated to seeing the school grow and improve.
- - Room for growth is tremendous. The school has a wide expanse of property, and many areas that could benefit from small improvements. For example, providing electricity for the school would cost about $800, with the benefit being that the school could offer better quality education over the long term.
I’m a High School Teacher?
I’m a Finance and Operations Management major (business things), and have always had an affinity for math. Somehow, a week before I arrived at Lusui, the Math and Business Studies teacher suffered a leg injury, and was rendered unable to teach for the next 3 months. Pause for a bit. Isn’t that timing completely ridiculous? The teacher who teaches my subjects becomes injured for almost the exact duration of my stay in Kenya. Luckily I met her today, so I’m sure she is real, but it’s still hard to grasp. Madame Ester’s misfortune (the previous teacher) has made my role at the school quite straightforward, and given me a regular schedule of classes with which to occupy my time.
Becoming Competent
Like I’ve said before, it started badly.
Day 2: Taught my first class by myself.
Day 4: Left early because I had the flu and felt horrible.
Day 5: Returned with the help of medicine, but probably should have stayed home and rested.
Day 6 (week 2): Graded 40 student’s national business exam.
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| My chalkboard writing has also gotten much better, as evidenced by the picture. (It was worse, believe me) |
But my experience and performance has gotten much better as I’ve adapted to the Kenyan education system. I’ve slowly refined my teaching style to a point where I think I’m actually getting information to my students. I’ve also tried to spice up the monotony of me talking with certain “segments” that are applicable to whatever I’m teaching. I got the idea from Coach Bob (a UP professor), who breaks from his science lectures for “creature features”, a.k.a. a cool video about random animals around the world. My math segment is called “Math Matters”, and I simply discuss a real-life application of math (like E=mc2 and the atomic bomb) and try to illustrate the importance of math to today’s world. For business, it’s the “Business Bulletin”, with the same idea as the math segment. Today I talked about Enron, and corporate ethics.
This week I also started learning five students’ names from each class, each day. After three days, I think I know about a fifth of the school, so I’m moving in the right directions. But it is tough. The standard hair style at Lusui (I’m not sure if it’s mandated for students, or just what is easiest), is a buzz-cut. Girl and boy. So 220 students with matching blue and white uniforms, and about 180 of which all have the same buzz-cut. So it’s a bit challenging, but definitely worth my time.
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| Ann and Josephine are closest to the camera, with Lebah, Zenah and Slyia to right of the picture. So I'm learning, but slowly. |
Projects Outside of the Classroom
Besides teaching I’m working with the administration and students to make a couple of small improvements to the school. They include the following:
- - Trying to start a learning resource center in an unused small room. This entails getting the school registered with the Kakamega District Library, and then being able to check out 50-100 books at one time to stock the small resource area. This also means getting buying educational materials and other supplementary education supplies that can assist students.
- - Getting the school basic requirements for future development, specifically electricity. Like I said, it would cost about $800, and could provide exponential future benefit to the students. I think I will be doing some online fundraising to fund this project, so keep an eye out.
- - Working with students to start a small leadership/business group. This idea is still in its infancy, but I think (and a recent survey backs-up) that a student store at the school that sold snacks during tea breaks or lunch would generate profits. And then the students could re-invest the money in improvements at the school.
- - Hosting a couple of workshops, one focused on student leadership, and the other on sexuality and adolescence. The first is my idea, and the second was suggested by the Principal
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| How to get students to take ownership = big challenge |
Overall, my biggest challenge has been getting student buy-in. Even the best students aren’t used to public speaking or organized leadership, but I’m doing my best to make the above projects that are working directly with students their projects, not mine. Overall my philosophy follows the below quote
“Go to the people, live with them, love them, learn from them. Start with what they know, build on what they have, and work with leaders so when the work is done, people can say “we did this ourselves”. – Lao Tzu
And that ends this blog entry. Stay tuned for international poverty, which I assure you will be arriving sometime this weekend.
Lots of love from Kenya,
Kurt