Butterflies

On Monday and Tuesday this week, all of the children at Rwentutu School took their Midterm Exams. Every term, all schoolchildren in Uganda take a National Standardized Midterm exam and a Final exam. I'm not sure what we were expecting, but the exams were challenging for the kids, to say the least, and the children really struggled. I mean really struggled. The children had exams in every subject (Reading, Math, Social Studies & Science, Religious Education, and English Grammar), and each exam consisted of approximately 60 questions all requiring a handwritten response (no multiple-choice). The exams were written in English, pretty strong "Academic English" actually, which made it very difficult for children to understand the directions. They tried their best and oftentimes took the entire two hours they were given to complete their tests, but as we flipped through page after page of completed exams, we began to realize how much work we had ahead of us for the rest of the summer.

Some of the children's responses were endearing – for example, on an English Grammar exam, when told to "Write the opposite of the underlined word" one child responded: "¬sky : YKS" and "stand : DNATS." Another, when instructed in the Math exam to "Draw and Shade two-thirds" drew a block-letter a two, a slash, and a three, and then shaded in the numbers and the slash mark. I think our favorite response was a Primary Two student who seemed to have "outsmarted" the test. When asked in the English exam to "Write the plural form of the underlined word," for the word "leaf" he wrote "TREE" and for the word "baby" he wrote "FAMILY." Responses like this made us smile (how can you not?!) and lifted our spirits, but others were disheartening and difficult for us to watch, as one student after another would incorrectly answer questions we knew they were capable of getting right. They couldn't rearrange five sentences into a story that made sense, they couldn't write different tenses of words, and many children, in an attempt to just have something written on their exam, would just copy words from the question as their answer (i.e. "Name three things plants need to grow" and a response would be "plant, grow, three").

 Children swarming around the books

I think we wanted so badly for these kids to succeed that we were forgetting that all of them are still learning English, and, most importantly, are not used to having to think. They are so used to having the answer given to them, or written on the chalkboard for them to recite or copy, that they continue to assume the answer is existing somewhere other than inside their heads. They are made to study things that don't make them think! Jackie, Evan and I have been rotating the past three weeks to a new grade every week, but we are now debating staying in one classroom for the remainder of our time to hopefully establish stronger relationships with smaller groups of children and gradually, as they feel more comfortable with us, encourage them to take more risks and become more critical-thinkers.

Exams aside, we have been discovering that the one thing these children love to do, more than anything else, is read. They devour books, reading everything from the title and dedication page to the publisher's name on the back cover. There is a classroom library filled with maybe 200 or so books, but the books are kept in the library and are never in the classrooms. After quickly picking up on how much these kids love reading, Jackie, Evan and I started bringing a small stack of books with us to each classroom every week. When children are done with their work, they immediately go to the books and begin reading them together. Yesterday, I had finished Science and the children were all free to go outside and play, but hardly anyone wanted to leave the classroom because they all wanted to look at the books.

We are trying to do as much teaching as we can through stories and literacy – teaching new words, connecting other subjects with books we read, and doing as much as we can to help these children see, hear, and use English in many different ways. Every once and a while, we'll throw in an open-ended thinking question to see how the children will respond. Yesterday, I read the book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," by Eric Carle, to my class of 45 Primary Three children (ages 8-10). After reading it and practicing a few comprehension activities, I asked the children, "Did you like the book?" to which they all responded, "Yes," so then I asked them, "Why?" A few children raised their hands so I called on one. "Because it was good?" she tried. "It was a good story," I said to her, "but why was it good? What did you like about it?" The kids looked at me as if my hair had just turned purple. What in the world were they supposed to say?? What did they think I wanted them to say? After an excruciating silence I was about to give my own response when a little boy raised his hand. "I liked it because the caterpillar ate oranges, and I like oranges?" he tried. "YES!!!!!!" I said (probably shouted, because I was so excited, maybe even threw a fist-pump in the air), "GOOD!!!!!" Then more hands went up; "I liked it because he ate an apple." "I liked it because he ate a cupcake." And then, Zebia, a little girl in the back raised her hand. "Well," she said, "I liked it because it teaches us we have to eat food to help us grow into beautiful things like butterflies."

In all my years of reading that book (not saying I am a frequent reader of "The Hungry Caterpillar" but, you know) I don't think I've ever picked up on that message, but Zebia did. And just like Zebia, all of the children know they have to eat whatever is in front of them for meals because it keeps them healthy and helps them grow to be strong. The only thing wrong with Zebia's answer, though, is that the children don't need to grow into beautiful butterflies.

They already are.