Challenges of Teaching

One of the challenges of teaching here is the extreme variation in student ability. When I say extreme, I literally mean it. I have Form 1 students who actually can’t read or write, in any language, and then they certainly do not speak English and probably understand nothing I say. And then I also have Form 1 students who raise their hand to enthusiastically answer every question, and can do so correctly every.single.time. In Form 4, I have some students who can’t speak English, can barely write their names, and if you ask them -2 + 2, they will tell you 4. AH! Then, I have other students in the same class who are so bright, and can understand my explanation of how to graph an inequality in a foreign language after the first example. It’s so crazy! And so difficult to teach. Do I try to begin with the basics, in hopes that the students who are behind will catch up? Do I pace with the fast students, since they are likely to be the only ones to pass the National Exam anyway? Or do I somehow try to find a balance…

This is a daily struggle in all of my classes, and since I’m teaching all four forms mathematics as well as Form 1 and Form 2 English, I ask myself these questions often.

To give you an idea of what I mean, I gave my Form 3 class an exam on the first unit, Relations. It was only four questions, and I gave them an hour to complete it.

1. The relation R is defined as R = {(-2,1) , (-1, 3) , (0,5) , (1,7) , (2,9)}

a.     Show R as a pictorial representation

b.     What is the domain of R?

c.      What is the range of R?

d.     What is R^-1?

     2. Given R = {(x,y): y = 2x + 8}, find R^-1

     3. Graph R = {(x,y): y = 3x -1}

     4.  Graph the inequality R = {(x,y): y < x + 2}

Now, I understand that half of this exam is expecting them to know how graph a relation, which is actually a very difficult concept for most students here. But, the first half of this is fairly easy, considering how much time we spent going over the vocabulary and examples in class.

However, I knew it was going to be a rough day when I walked into the classroom to see 47 students in their seats, considering we’ve only been averaging 25 to 30 students in Form 3 (we’re still waiting to hear who actually passed form 2 last year…but that’s a story for another day). But like I mentioned in my Uji post, attendance has been up since we’ve started serving the students porridge. It’s a blessing and a curse, because those extra 20 students had literally no idea what was happening on this exam.

After marking the exam, I had 3 students score a perfect 10/10. And 11 more students score at least a 4/10, which is a pretty decent score in math here. Then I had a few score 2 or 3 points, 7 scored 1 point, and finally, 23 scored a perfect 0/10….which in any classroom is just crazy! And this is the moment when I begin to wonder about everything. I guess we’ll just keep plugging along, and hope that the 14 who had some idea of what was happening will continue to be successful in school. And for the rest of them, well, it actually makes no difference if they are able to graph a relation or not, because the reality of it is that these esoteric math topics could not be less applicable here in the bush.