Notes from SKO: Teacher Chronicles, Part 4

I’m going to use this post to address the three issues I mentioned at the end of the previous instalment. I know it has been a long time since my last post, and a lot has happened since then. I actually had a first draft ready since June, but it went stale in my notebook.

I’m actually done with the main part of my NYSC Primary Assignment as a teacher at GDSS Gidan Dare. My students have completed their end-of-the-year promotion exam and the rest of the students are doing their exams now. I’ll have more time available to write and design and you should see more online activity from my side.

Why I Thought JSS3 Would Lose the Debate

In the section titled "First review and the Great Debate" in my previous post, I confessed that I did not expect my students to win. I was very surprised when the judges’ scores for both classes came quite close. I was sure they would have lost by a huge margin.

I know it’s terrible that, even in my role as their teacher, I expected them to fail. The ideal teacher is meant to believe that her students can make a miraculous transformation between the announcement date and the day of the competition.

Not me. Especially not with the English debate. Here’s why:

• The 2015/2016 JSS3 class, which also happened to be GDSS Gidan Dare’s first batch of students taking the junior secondary promotion exam {technically referred to as the Basic Education Certificate Exam (B.E.C.E.)}, has cemented its poor reputation as a class of poor performers. They started their first year with an insufficient number of teachers which resulted in poor discipline.
• Although the management of the school has improved the JSS3 students do not do them justice. Instead of holding back the poor performers, the school kept promoting the entire class to the next level. In addition, the school seems to keep admitting new students through the school year without proper placement testing. I eventually realized that a few of my students weren’t even ready for JSS1 material in English. This combined with the students’ general indiscipline severely reduced their chances of victory.
• Lastly, to make it easier for the debaters to memorize the essence of the arguments they would make, I encouraged the entire class to formulate points. The idea was to select the best ones and coach the class representatives with them. It backfired spectacularly. The two male debaters refused to use any points apart from the ones they developed by themselves. The lone female debater was so soft-spoken that her superb set of points were partially drowned in the booing and jeering of the main event.

I’m not proud of giving excuses, but I’ve learned that I’m neither Hilary Swank in Freedom Writers nor Samuel L. Jackson in Coach Carter. I don’t have the charismatic combination of talent and training that turns deserts (and some Sahel savannahs) into verdant grassland and forests.

Getting Over the Teaching Jitters

There was no magic solution here. I got over them by just showing up in class and facing the students.

In my first two weeks, I basically walked in, mumbled a greeting, wrote on the board, and waited for the bell to ring. Eventually, I got comfortable enough to start addressing the students by name, walking between the rows, and checking their notes individually.

I initially needed a lot of help to maintain order in the classroom. Often, other teachers and sometimes the vice principals (there’s one for academics and another for administration) had to come in to quiet the students. I think my frustration with the noise and disruptions finally got me to immerse myself fully in the classroom.

I also became very proficient at using Google Translate to make sure that my most important instructions got across to them in both Hausa and English. Google, FTW!

Rewards and Punishments

A big part of my strategy for actually educating my students was finding ways to reward their participation in class sessions. Simply recognizing top scorers by putting their names on the board wasn’t enough, so I started buying sweets to give to students who made significant contributions in class or did exceptionally well on assigned work.

When advanced common sense kicked in, I realized that plying hyperactive kids with sugary treats was a recipe for disaster. I ended the second term by giving mathematical instrument sets to the top performing students on the review assignment before the end-of-term examination.

However, all the money for my rewards scheme was coming out of my personal funds - federal allowance and money from my family and I was under a lot of stress financially. I had to scale it back drastically in the third term.

On the punishment side, I already decided before I began teaching that I would not engage in any corporal punishment of students, particularly flogging or spanking.

You may notice canes in the hands of teachers and a student or two in my photos here and on my Instagram page (happy sleuthing!).

I’m proud to say I only gave into temptation once, when I threw a small piece of chalk at a repeat offender who failed to heed multiple requests to be quiet (karma got me; the chalk hit someone else instead and I had to apologize).

My original course of disciplinary action was to students to kneel when they misbehaved and refer repeat offenders to the vice principals or one of the very strict teachers. But then I happened on a more effective strategy.

In Sokoto, the custom is for boys and girls to be taught in separate classrooms - boys in class A and girls in class B. I assume it’s part of Muslim teaching tradition. However, due to space constraints at my school, all JSS3 students are in one classroom, albeit on separate sides.

I soon noticed that the two sides hardly interacted with each other and then it dawned on me that I could use this to my advantage. Their embarrassment would be my weapon against indiscipline.

Misbehaving boys were asked to stand or "sit on the wall" on the girls side and their female counterparts were asked to stand on the boys side (just standing in front of the seated boys was enough to make them beg for forgiveness). It was super effective, though I had to increase the intensity for the boys who were hardcore troublemakers. Luckily, "Nigerian Twitter" came to my rescue.

Sadly, one day, despite all my efforts to instil order, I was forced to use my last resort. I’d threatened to send students to the vice principals a few times so they chose to call my bluff. I called for a surgical air strike. The VPs and a particularly strict teacher descended on the troublemakers with such alacrity that I felt their pain. I never needed (or planned) to call for an air strike again.

I hope you enjoyed reading this instalment in the series. Please feel free to leave a response or comment on my essay.

In my next post, I’ll discuss the second term exam, the promotion exam, and why I didn’t write much on the third term.

You can catch up on the entire series here.