…Teaching thirty-four of thirty-nine possible classes a week, I have few free periods this year. Time is pinched further as other teachers drop by, class or not, to ask a variety of questions: “Leahy! Are Closing Remarks and Word of Thanks not the same thing?” “Andrew, sorry. What is the self esteem?” “Andrew, sorry. Are you having a worksheet for proper nouns?” When I do have forty minutes to myself, I sometimes walk the school to see the work in other classes.

Today, in the first class to my right, Ms. Korupanda was seated at her desk and the learners looked unencumbered by any specific task, flipping through the pages of old, half-torn books. In the second class, Mr. Ndjoze’s, learners were sitting unattended. Same in the third class, Mr. Marenga’s. Finally, in Zebby’s class, the learners were “working.” Although Zebby was, like other teachers, seated at his desk, the learners were busy with what we call summary. Summary is the cornerstone of Namibian education. A teacher summarizes the important points of a chapter or lesson and writes them meticulously on the board. The learners copy down the notes and attempt to memorize them later for tests. In this case, Zebby had duplicated the notes and the learners were gluing them into their books. This shows planning on Zebby’s part, but it takes a minimum of effort to accomplish. As I made my turn of the school, this was the most promising classroom.

Later, as I sat in my class – I admit daydreaming and writing – I listened as the teacher next door extracted several learners, berated them in mother tongue, and smacked their palms with a long stick. I listened to the slaps, and felt nothing at all…

…Kick Off Magazine, a monthly soccer news digest, is easily the most coveted reading (looking) material by any boy at Goeie Hoop Primary School. Not only does it chronicle the exploits of their alter egos – “I am Ronaldinho! I am Beckham! scrawled on everything they own – it also provides color photos of the remaining favorites. Consider its rare appearance at our remote location and it becomes invaluable (a new ball tops the list, a photo a close second). See a crowd of boys huddled over something with pages and Kick Off lies at the center, its oily, tattered pages slick with overuse. Literacy matters little; successfully identifying each player confers field cred. As a leader flips the pages, onlookers point and rattle off names – Figo, Raul, Bartlet, C. Ronaldo, Camara, Michald, Ballack, Messi, Drogba. Incorrectly attributing a name – no matter the obscure angle of the shot – and risk being branded a poser. Even the youngest boys with little talent can name the greats by face, something with which I still struggle.

The inclusion of not one but four copies of this magazine in my classroom’s Reading Corner was a questionable decision. Is it reading? Am I letting them win? Will there be fights? Would pages systematically disappear until the empty shell of a cover remains, coming to my attention weeks later?

Enter Kariua, I think the toughest camelthorn in the 7th grade. Although his spoken English is quite good – he seems to have defended himself, survived by it – he can barely read the simplest words and writes with a combination of affected messiness, gibberish, and uncertainty, presumably shooting for partial credit when a teacher struggles to decipher his nonsense. It is Kariua who simultaneously attracts the most punishments and the most special errands from teachers, a sign of respect and responsibility. I too have succumbed, and not in a good way, to his textbook cries for attention.

I originally pegged him as the class clown, once publicly humiliating him as a punishment, only to discover he is actually the class screw-up. This ended in tears, for both of us. When the other learners openly call you a “slow learner,” something they’ve obviously heard from teachers, and question your cleanliness in a place where using flushing toilets is a luxury, you’ve got problems. Was he beaten? Abused? Orphaned? I imagine his home life in melodramatic visions. Hostel schools make real information about home life difficult to obtain. I’m not sure what I’d do with it anyway.

When – at my worst – I too have become more physical than is probably legal in the US, it has been with Kariua. And yet he (obviously?) requires the most physical affection, staying after class to talk and ask questions, to clean, to inadvertently lean against me.

During reading corner time last week – a reward for consecutive productive classes – several boys predictably fought over the Kick Off magazines. I made my rounds, encouraging quiet reading and eventually came to Kariua. He can’t read. Not at all. For a 13-year-old boy, something was missed along the way, even if English is his second language. We sat together and worked through a picture alphabet book, acknowledging a common letter, then working out cat, clown, cow. A boy to our left finished hurriedly paging through Kick Off and began to hand it Kariua, who had been next in line. Without removing his eyes from the page, Kariua waved the offer away and continued to read, always looking to me for validation. Face, foot, frog.

This job has much too much power and I’m still not good enough.

But the learning curve IS tremendous. I’ve baptized myself in EFL books, waking up in the middle of the night thinking about themed units, the audio-lingual and comparative approaches, the benefits of inclusion versus exclusion for slow learners in an environment with little special attention. And anyway, now my learners can say “let’s go, let’s go” with an American English accent – my motivational legacy. Better than the impersonation of Mr. Ndjoze; he gets angry grunts. Mine seems goal-oriented…

…More interesting to them than any teaching style I’ve adopted, my new rules/consequences/rewards system is a favorite point of discussion for classes. There are yellow cards, red cards, Mr. Leahy dollars, and a chance to buy a homemade dinner shared with their favorite English teacher (this year). It’s labor intensive and I probably won’t use it again, but you learn. Computer lab time and photos are very popular ($10 and $100 respectively). But dinner with Mr. Leahy ($60, thanks again Senora Cullen for the idea) has proven to be the real point of interest for my learners. Although satisfactorily fed, they rarely eat much of anything exciting. Their eyes gleam as they imagine the luxurious dishes that could produce such rosy cheeks, such plentiful arm hair. Lamb? Roast goat? With all the trimmings? My eyes gleam as I imagine serving them porridge and sour milk; bread, butter, and eggs; macaroni and tomato sauce; putting speculations about my diet to rest. I am not rich. I can’t “borrow [you] one photo.” And I don’t eat fried chicken and drink Coca Cola three times a day…

…Believe it or not, my school has track suits. They sit in a box, unused, and have come to represent one of the main problems of schools (countries?) in a stage of middle development.

The tracksuits were purchased about five years ago, an idea that sought to model the successes of town schools, schools on TV. The royal blue nylon with the school crest and oversized, fold-down collar is a smart little number. A large portion of the school fund was sunk into the suits; they were expected to bring returns as a fundraiser. Excited parents goggled over the rich fabric, the fine cut, and promised their learners would be first in line.

But when the tracksuits finally arrived, no one bought them. Parents didn’t have the money, or didn’t want to spend it on tracksuits. They sit in a dusty box in the principal’s office. At every parent meeting we’ve had, the suits are retrieved and paraded, yet again. Again, everyone admires the fabric, the feel. And again they are refused and returned to the box. An unfinished idea. A failed plan. Now, an afterthought.

I see this in our little used library, our poorly maintained computer lab, our stack of misunderstood dictionaries. Everyone knew them to be a good thing, where we should be – learners reading glossy new library books in their royal track suits. But no one knows how to make it work. The tracksuits remain boxed and the library remains locked and after school, every day, the teachers conspicuously disappear. No one knows how to make it work.
Neither do I.

A recently organized photo lab fundraiser may fall victim to the same problem. We organized the workshop, shared the knowledge, printed some photos. Everyone was excited and everyone claimed they would buy photos. Yet after the workshop, the interest is gone, the printer has returned to the secretary’s office, and our fancy new photo ink cartridge is slowly being sapped by unnecessary letters to the Namdeb Diamond Company asking for donations.

I think you can’t stop. You bring ideas. You believe the school is at the next step, even if it isn’t, even before it gets there. You keep holding workshops, (re)starting the library, talking about alternatives to corporal punishment. Because some day, in a generation that’s not content to rest on the laurels of Independence, maybe it sticks…