How I feel about being at the CBW Primary School
I was in two minds about whether to publish this page as is.
It is not the most upbeat of pieces that I have ever written.
Sometimes I write pages just so that I read them and get my slightly
skewed head into some sort of order.
I think this is such a page.
I decided to publish is anyway (obviously). I think if
nothing else it helped me to see a pattern. I go to somewhere
exciting, like the Philippines or Ghana, enjoy being excited by the
place, then the initial excitement wears off and I slide into some kind
of funk.
After the funk (or demons, or mental illness or whatever else you
want to call it) has gone, I get into my groove and do some cool stuff.
This is what happened in the Philippines. My Filipino funk story
can be found here.
At the moment, I am convalesced at home having taken the day
off. I am extremely tired and have next to no appetite, which is
probably due to the funk. The tiredness will pass though and the
funk will lift. I just gotta. Slow. Things.
Down. Which is what I am doing.
So, if nothing else, treat this page as the thoughts of a guy who
sometimes slides into a funk.
School can actually be quite cool when I am there.
3rd July 2006
I try to make this website as honest as possible. I share
the bad times, the good
times, the sad times and
the adventures.
In keeping with this tradition, I am going to start this web page
with how well I did at Pulao
Elementary School.
I say with no false modesty that I was a superstar at Pulao.
The teachers all loved me. The pupils all loved me. They
even threw me a fantastic
leaving party. No other volunteer had a party like that thrown
for them. Teachers would often take me aside and tell me that I
was so much better than the other volunteer teachers. Someone
describe me as the icon of the volunteer community.
If I get to be honest about the good things, then I also need to be
honest about the not so good things.
How I feel about being at the CBW Primary School
Not great. Frustrated. Useless.
A marked change from my experience at Pulao...
So why haven't things gone quite as well for me here?
Anxiety
I don't fear none of my enemies.
And I don't fear bullets from uzis.
I've been dealing with something that's worse than these
That'll make you fall to your knees
And that's my anxiety.
The
Black Eyed Peas
I am really bad at asking for anything.
I'd never ask for money if I'd been short-changed. I go out of
my way to avoid inconveniencing anyone.
Sometimes it gets a bit extreme. I
remember being at some church conference. They were running at a
loss and wanted some donations. I was happy to give them some
money, but I didn't want to inconvenience the person who was handing
out the envelopes. The conference lost out on some money because
I didn't want to call the guy over.
Various psychiatric health workers figure it's because I place no
value at all upon myself. They could be onto something...
This is problem at the CBW Primary School because I really don't
like asking the teachers if I can have a group of students to take
away for a tutorial group. I know it sounds strange. It
sounds strange to me too. But knowing how it works and the
reasons behind it doesn't make it any easier to deal with.
Sometimes the teachers might say "No", for perfectly good
reasons like the students having a test or something. This only
adds to my anxiety.
On one occasion I got so worked up about it that I didn't even go
to school.
I can't think why it has been such a problem here and wasn't as
much a problem in the Philippines.
A Disorganized School
The CBW Primary School has come it leaps and bounds in a short
amount of time. The school was operating out of a church this
time last year. The entire school was in one big room. One
teacher would give a question at the front of the room, and another
teacher would have to repeat it at the back of the room for the
students who didn't hear it. Each grade was separated by
arbitrary lines on the church floor. Teachers would be powerless
to stop the massive fights that would break out.
Big strides have also been made in the corporal punishment
area. Former international volunteers would act as vigilantes
and wander around from classroom to classroom to prevent children
being beaten by teachers.
The CBW Primary School still has several big strides to be
made.
One notable area is the disorganisation of the place.
Teachers will often turn up late for classes. The teacher-less
class will quickly get out of control and disturb other classes.
Out of control children often invade my tutorial groups.
On more than one occasion I have arrived at school and been been
told that teacher so-and-so hasn't turned up and would I mind teaching
Grade 3A?
I tended to be ultra-organized when I worked at Enabling
Technologies. I just don't operate well in an environment as
disorganised as this.
Wanting to Teach and Fear
I don't want to sort out the big problems at the CBW Primary
School.
I don't want to sort out the poor quality of teaching.
I don't want to sort out their disorganisation
problems.
I don't want to sort out their discipline issues.
I don't want to sort out the teachers being underpaid.
I just want to teach.
I want to get in front of a group of kids and maliciously teach
them while keeping them amused. I lurv doing
that.
Maybe this is all a bit selfish of me. I use to revel in
these sort of challenges. I used to sort of business problems of
large companies and did a damn fine job of it. I headed the
technical department at Enabling Technologies
for fabs sake.
I successfully took on many challenges not dissimilar to the
challenges at the CBW Primary School.
The success came at a huge cost to me though. A complete
mental breakdown is no fun.
The reason I don't want to take on these challenges is fear.
I fear that if I throw myself at a brick wall then I will break
again. I don't want to break again.
Disillusionment
I am also disillusioned with the CBW organisation. Not with
the fantastic employees of CBW, but with the upper echelons of
CBW. I don't want to go into this as part of this article, but I
will dedicate some time to it in the future.
I'll just say at this point that I can't
see GVN* continuing its partnership with CBW if what
everybody suspects to be happening is true.
On a more positive
note...
Just recently I have started taking some classes in the morning for
Grade Two.
This goes against all the sustainability points
that I have previously made. At this stage, I don't really care.
I enjoy it and the kids seem to have fun at my
zany teaching techniques.
I was recently teaching the students where to
write the carry digit when you are solving multiplication
problems. I first wrote it down on the far side of the blackboard,
then on a students desk, then on a wall and finally on the shirt I was
wearing. A chorus of "No's" and laughs followed each
absurd location. The students and I were having a great time and I
guarantee you that they know where to write the carry digit now.
It's experiences like this that keep me sane
and happy.
* GVN
is the New Zealand organisation I volunteer through. GVN sets up
many partnerships with people like CBW in Ghana, and CERV in the
Philippines. It is like an umbrella organisation.
If GVN withdrawals its support for CBW, then CBW will lose 99% of its
funding and all of its international volunteers. It would not
survive.
Questions? Comments? Try contacting
me.
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(c)
2005 and 2006 Malcolm Trevena.
All the stuff on this site is written by me, Malcolm Trevena. Feel free to
link to this page. Heck, you can even copy stuff from here if you
want. Just make sure you sight me as a reference.
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