Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard

I’ve now been at site for two full months, and teaching for a full four weeks. And what an experience the Togolese classroom is! I feel a little lucky that I’m doing this having never taught before… I can’t imagine being an experienced teacher and having to adjust to the crazy differences in education between the two countries.

My School - CEG Nassiete

Every morning, I wake up at 5:00, giving me enough time to eat breakfast, get ready, and make the 15 minute walk to school by 6:45. At that time, the “major generale” (the head student of the school) blows his whistle, calling for each class to line up on the front lawn. We stand quietly and watch as the Togolese flag is raised up on the big branch we use as a flagpole, and then the major calls on one of the classes to sing the national anthem. Then the whistle is blown again, students scatter back to finish sweeping the classroom floors, and teachers do last minute prep in the office before first period starts at 7:00.

The school is a big cement building with five rooms – four classrooms and the office. Each room is big and airy, with a big grid of window holes built into the walls. Wooden desks fill the room, and each seats between one and three students, depending on the size of the class. (My largest class, 108 students, has kids packed like sardines three to a desk, with barely enough space for a skinny Togolese tween to navigate between the rows. Me walking to the back of the classroom is out of the question!)  There are two large blackboards, one at the front and one at the back of the classroom.

The school day goes until noon. Each grade has five classes, 55 minutes each, with a 25 minute break in the middle of the day. Each classroom houses one grade, and students stay in their rooms for all of their classes – it’s the teachers who switch around. At break time, two or three women show up near the school to sell snacks – beignets, porridge, and plates of rice with hot sauce.

I teach three grades – the sixieme (the youngest kids, just out of primary school), cinquieme, and I co-teach the quatrieme with Monsieur Kolani, the other English teacher at my school. I’ve already shocked you all with the size of my sixieme class (I repeat – 108 kids!), but the other two classes are more manageable, with between 40 and 50 students in each.

Not Actually Teaching, Just a Photoshoot

We’re expected to do three activities in each class – usually a vocabulary lesson, a grammar lesson, and some kind of reading or listening activity. Reading exercises are tough, because resources are tough to come by. The school only has about 13 books for each class – and those are ragged photocopies that my homologue painstakingly reglues at least once a week – and even in my smaller classes, three students need to crowd around each copy. Other exercises are tough, too, because of the number of students – Even if I could call on everyone each class, it wouldn’t be nearly enough talking for them to improve their English. Groupwork is a totally foreign concept in the rote-memorization environment of Togolese school, but I’m trying to introduce it little by little.

Though I’m not a Togolese student, I imagine the biggest obstacle is having school entirely in French. It’s nobody’s first language – children speak only Moba until they start learning French in primary school, and though that’s earlier than most American s start a foreign language, it’s still wild to me that by age 12, they’re required to attend a school where all subjects are taught in the second language they’re learning. I couldn’t do that. It’s totally impressive, and also no surprise to me if kids struggle!

There are five other teachers at my school – all men – and our director. Other, larger schools have other authority figures (like a senseur, or chief disciplinarian), but because we’re so tiny, a lot of those kinds of duties fall on the teachers and director. So far, everyone has been very welcoming, and are very lenient with the amount of non-teaching responsibilities I’m ready to take on at the school!

Fellow Volunteer Morgan, Me, Kolani, and Soyenou

Kolani, the other English teacher at the school, is my Peace Corps appointed counterpart. We’re all supposed to search out many homologues to collaborate with, but he is my springboard. He’s incredibly nice, and excited about being able to converse with someone whose native language is English. We’re hoping to start an English club at the school, and maybe a local English Teachers’ Club, for teachers in neighboring villages to get together and talk in and about l’Anglais.

My other best friend at school is named Soyenou. He teaches French and History/Geography, and has volunteered to help teach me Moba, the local language. Twice a week, we meet at the school in the afternoon, where we spend an hour learning new vocabulary words, and practicing sentences I can use at the marche. “N bwa n da dam piile,” I find myself saying often, “I want to buy 100 francs worth of Tchakpalo.”

Learning local language is a great key to integration. Nothing seems to make my neighbors happier than being able to greet me in their mother tongue. I’m not sure whether its sincere appreciation of the effort I’m making to be a part of the community, or glee at the ridiculousness of some white girl mispronouncing phrases they’ve known from childhood, but either way, I’m happy to put a smile on someone’s face when I can answer “A saa le?” – “Where are you going?” with a broken but confident “N saan kalatu je,” “I’m going to school, but I’m coming back!”