School Visit

March 25, 2010
Sangalkam, Senegal

Senegalese School System:
College (Junior High) and Ecole Premier (Elementary School)

Early Monday morning, I walk into the hazy classroom. Streams of light filtered through the shutters illuminating the dust and sand blowing through the room. The room is hot and crowded, filled to the brim with students awaiting the days’ lesson.
Escorted by the teacher, I walk to the front of the class as 56 students stand in unison and shout, “Bonjour, Madame”. The teacher explains in French that I am a Peace Corps Volunteer observing his class to see how the Senegalese School system is conducted. Then he switches from French to Wolof in order to avoid being understood by the outsider, however the meaning is not lost: “be on your best behavior and don’t make me look bad” was the essence of his message; this is later confirmed by my language trainer who had been standing outside the door unbeknownst to the teacher.

I walk to the back left corner of the classroom and pick a spot next to three teenage boys from which to observe the class. They study me as I take my seat, taking in every movement and gesture. In all likelihood, they have never sat next to a white woman before. The teacher cracks the yardstick on the front desk indicating the start of class, commanding attention. The kids straighten up, raise their hands, snapping and shouting to be chosen as the demonstrator.

This is the beginning of the first of three Senegalese classes I am to observe today.

Students form the ages of 13 through 16 cram together to fill every space afforded by the tiny room. Three or four students squeeze together at one desk for prime seating while the stragglers are left sitting around me in the far back corner; the view of the blackboard is dimly visible from the layers of chalk indelibly inscribed by past lessons. The teacher writes the problem set in French cursive and I struggle to read the questions. The students have 10 minutes to solve the five problems written on the board. There is no instruction, no equation written by the teacher, nor any help given to the 50 plus students in the room. They are on their own and if they don’t understand the assignment, they must either wait for their peers to go to the board and solve it, or, more often than not, they will never learn it.

One child, an African albino, is a little overzealous in solving the 4th problem. He stands up, snaps his fingers while shouting to be called upon. Apparently he is too close to the teacher who slaps the back of his head. The student retakes his seat, his head down in embarrassment. Immediately after he slaps the child, the teacher turns to me and shoots me a glance to check my reaction. I can tell he knows what he did is wrong and the self-aware eyes give him away. Yet it will make no difference. He will continue to hit students that annoy him.

This is a typical scene, if not less crowded, for a Senegalese junior high, or College. The age range is so vast due to a lack of organization at the lower levels of schooling. In Senegal, Primary education usually beings when a child is 6 years old. However, there is no set age for kids to start kindergarten and it is up to the parents to decide when their child is ready to begin schooling.

Elementary school is a basic tutorial in counting, the alphabet, introductory French, and introductory elements of science, history, geography, hygiene, and appropriate social and civil behavior. Upon completion of Elementary school, or the equivalent of 6th grade, all students must pass the CFEE grand examination at the end of the year in order to go on to College. The test is a major review of the full year. In fact, 2/3 of the school year is dedicated to passing the test alone, similar to how AP classes in the U.S. are conducted. As a result, most of the “learning” that goes on in the school system is actually memorization and not what us Americans would call learning. There is no room for thinking outside the box, nor is there any encouragement for learning how to think, in fact it is strongly discouraged. Because the class sizes are so large, there are not enough resources to go around. There is only one book for the entire class, which is kept by the teacher, and there is only one teacher for 60 or more students packed like sardines in one tiny, hot classroom. As a result, individual attention to students, or any kind of one–on –one help is simply not afforded. Moreover, and the most heartbreaking aspect of this experience for me to witness, was that some of the teachers either do not care enough about their craft or their students or get paid enough to want to stay after and provide individual attention. As a result, many students end up failing their CFEE and fail out of school for life. There is no second chance.

This brings me to my next anecdote (which I hope to convey at least 1% of the emotion I felt when I experienced it).

There is a young boy, about 8 or 9 years old, named Mouhamed Gayu. He has just received his corrections from the test the week before. Curious and not knowing any better, I ask to look at the student’s exam. It is all in French so I don’t understand much. But the part I do understand is the 0/10 written in red ink on the first page. I turn the page, another 0/10. I flip through the pages in the rest of his test book and see 0/10 on nearly every page. I realize that this is not just the test results from the last week but the year’s worth of tests to date. Every page I look through I see 0/10. I hand the test back to the student who flips to the last page. He see’s a 0/10, closes his book, and begins to cry.

He is one of 66 students in the class. And his shame and helplessness are overwhelming. He is sitting in the back of the class with his head down between his arms. Tears silently roll down his cheeks hoping to remain unnoticed. His peers sitting at the table around him are rambunctious and show little support. The teacher has her back to the students and continues to lethargically hand out the rest of the tests.

Normally failing a test is not the end of the road. But in Mouhamed’s case it is. This lackluster education is all he has. If he fails the end of the year exam, he will not be allowed to move on to the next grade level. His education will be over and he will literally have no future outside of his town of Sangalkam. What is worse is that he already knows it. And the weight of each tear he sheds breaks his heart and mine.

The education system is Senegal, as stated before, is a nationalized system. It is run by the government and embodies the French style of education (i.e.: strict, strict, strict). Because it is nationalized, there is a set curriculum for every school. There is no room for an elective or “fun” class nor do the classes themselves seem very fun – in terms of my own Americanized standard. There are also not enough schools, not enough teachers, and not enough resources. In the school I visited in Sangalkam, the town I am currently living in for my homestay, on average, there was 1 teacher for 76 students (the kindergarten/ecole premier and 1 teacher for 87 kids).

During Mouhamed’s class, the elegantly clad teacher came up to me to greet me and welcome me to her class. Her purple complet was immaculate and it was clear she spent time on her appearance. I was still trying to clear up my own tears after seeing Mouhamed’s reaction and I did my best to put on a smile. Mouhamed’s head was still in his hands as she stood towering over him and me. I glanced in his direction to see if he had stopped tearing. He hadn’t. The teacher took note of my concern and casually with pomposity in her stare, “oh, don’t worry about him, he’s the worst in the class”. Her dismissive comment made my jaw drop. I just couldn’t, and still can’t, understand how anyone could be so blasé about a failing student.

Wanting to understand better, I politely asked questions about her class, her students, which subjects she liked teaching, the usual introductory questions to get a feel for who she was as a teacher. I also wanted to know, since I will be working directly with the school in my village when I install, what resources she needed to be a more effective teacher and what challenges she faced within the school system and her school specifically. Her response was that she hated teaching, hated the students, hated the school she worked at, hated the town she lived in. I asked her why she became a teacher if she disliked it so much. She responded by saying that she only became a teacher because the economy was bad and couldn’t find work elsewhere. It was a means to an end and she said she was only willing to put in as much effort as she got paid to do. In terms of resources, she said she needed motivated students, because the ones in her class were lazy and didn’t want to learn. There are 66 plus students in her class. She also wanted more books and smaller classes because it was hard to teach unmotivated students with only one book and one classroom.

While there are many teachers in Senegal who are good and motivated and invest in the success of their students, her situation and reaction are by no means uncommon. A serious problem here is that teachers do not get paid enough but they are always in demand. Often times, teaching serves as a steady paycheck until people can find work elsewhere. And simply, the craft of teaching is often not understood like it is in the U.S. Memorization and repetition are the skills taught in school and critical thinking, analysis and questions are strongly discouraged (this is a polite way of saying that students that ask questions will either punished with a head slap or shame for not understanding what the teacher said the first time – even if it is unclear or incorrect).

The Senegalese school system, as well as most of the nationalized school systems in West Africa, is funded by outside businesses, the World Bank, for one, being the largest contributor. As a result, the main concern is basic literacy and the process of thinking is not addressed. Moreover, to help save on cost, the exams at the end of the year serve to weed out the students who aren’t as quick to memorize and are not given a second chance.

While it is still early in my service, education is something I am already driven to work on when I get to my site based off of this experience. And though it this is a tough reality for me to face, I am hopeful that I can contribute even in a small way.