Category: International Development

Sometimes I visit schools but it’s got a bit boring over the years because, despite my urging, my hosts usually want me to see several in a day, often no more than 1/2 hour per school.  During most visits, we walk around the site and visit a few classrooms.  Usually the school and the selected classrooms are dilapidated — government officials want to impressed upon me that the school (or by extension, the entire education system) needs more funds.  Or the school principal shows off a new laboratory or classroom or computer.  These rare displays are more heartening, but even in these cases, additional resources are requested in the name of “scaling up”.  It is fair game.  I represent an international organization after all and the needs are real. It’s just that these patent visits do blur together after a while.

School visits are more interesting when I can spend some time talking with teachers and students.  Normally, I only get to walk into a classroom for a few minutes.  The children stand up and say hello in unison.  “Bonjour monsieur”.  Sometimes they will chant a slogan or sing a patriotic song.  Always an uncomfortable moment with the adults holding forced smiles.  The teacher is usually nervous, sometimes irritated.  I’ll usually ask the teacher how many girls are in the class, what subject is presently being taught, how many kids have repeated their grade (sometimes I will take a poll).  I’ll stroll down the aisle (if there is one) and look at notebooks and textbooks. Sometimes (if time permits) I’ll ask one or two kids to recite a couple of lines from their books.  Then I ask them to explain what they’ve read.  They are usually scared witless.  I don’t think that I leave a very good impression of international organizations, Americans, white guys, or whatever.   What really ruins the mood is that I am accompanied by several government officials, who crowd the doorway and are nervous as hell that some one will say something embarrassing.  Very stressful for them, which is why they continuously want to move on to the next school.

A real school visit should last half a day because no one can keep up a facade for that long.  The conversation relaxes and I’m eventually ignored — after all, everyone has real jobs to do.  Government officials usually don’t have the patience for this kind of visit and after a while take off to hang out with local dignitaries over tea or lunch.  So I am thankfully left on my own.  I used to do more of this earlier in my career and when I was a doctoral student.  Time is more precious now, although spent hurriedly and ultimately badly.  I’ll wander around and chat with teachers, the principal, and others (the guard, the women who prepare lunch for the kids).

I’ll usually sit in the back a class for a while.  That’s probably where I learn the most.  The back rows are usually peopled with the ignored children: bad boys several years older than the others or listless kids with heads on folded arms.  Being with the older kids means I can hide behind the big ones and the teacher takes less notice of my presence.  I look over the sea of children and note that the prim and proper ones sitting in the front rows who are called on regularly whether their hands are up or not.  The middle rows are the most interesting.  Here are the boys who lunge across their desks with hands stretched towards the teacher,  “Hey, ooh, ooh” — the most hyper jump out of their seats.   The girls also raise their hands but less theatrically.  The best teachers can handle the middle masses like an orchestra.  Most struggle in a state of exasperation, spinning between the blackboard and then scanning the rows for the one who said something rude while their backs were turned. Some are tired and irritable and spend a lot of time yelling inconsequentially.  Most are trying really really hard to make a difference.

I say my goodbyes and there is a sense of camaraderie.  But even at the end of these visits there are expectations.  “So will you be able to fix the latrines? Give us books? Build a wall or fence to keep the thieves out?  Computers? Teacher quarters?” I respond with banal and vague promises that we will be helping the entire school system and that these benefits will cascade downwards to their schools.  A glint of disappointment, or “at least we tried”.  It’s fair game.

Next time I’ll describe a visit I made to a school in Cameroon about a year ago.