Same Teacher; Slightly Different Classroom

Well, I've just completed my first week of officially teaching in a Kenyan classroom and it seems as though I've experienced a month's worth of activity. Acclimating to a new culture and trying to do something that should be second nature to me now is harder than I expected.

In this week's episode of things that would never happen in Canada: One of the first questions that the students asked me when I met them was if I beat children? I quickly recovered from shock and informed them that we don't discipline that way in Canada. Their eyes seemed to alight with glee when they found out that discipline in my classroom came more in the form of training and talking through a problem. Even the teachers stared aghast at me when I told them that we don't strike children in Canada. "So, how do you punish them?"
"Well, I go over my classroom expectations at the beginning of the year and then I just look at them when they're not following a rule. And I keep looking at them until they change their behaviour. If that doesn't work, we have a private conversation in which I remind them of the class expectations, we discuss the fact that they're not complying, we talk about the root cause of their actions, and then we make a plan to follow the rules. Students know they are not welcome in my classroom if they can't follow the rules and they just usually choose to obey. If they do something that is really damaging to school property or to another student, we work through a program called restorative justice, where they have to make a plan with the teacher for how to right the wrong that they've created. If it's done well, they learn the consequences of actions not only to themselves, but to others."

I watched as their incredulous looks turned into smirks aimed at each other. I could imagine the glaring thought bubbles above their heads, "Sure, Mzungu. You try that for a week and see how well it works here."

And to be honest, I'm not sure yet how it will work here. When an entire system of discipline, family structure, and society is different, I don't know how well another culture's expectations will fit. But, I've tried this system for half a week and I will tell you that I'm working with remarkably well-behaved children who know how to self-regulate. Their smiles in class and even the serious demeanour they adopt when I make them redo an assignment that they've failed to bring to class seem to be outward expressions of acceptance. But, this is only the first week and I have much yet to learn.

When I think of classroom discipline, I think back to what "Little Women" taught me as a preteen: if you hit and humiliate a child, they will only grow up learning to hit and humiliate others. Taking time to talk through an issue, get to the heart of our nature and why we choose to disobey, and then being given the grace to try again or to learn from our mistakes and feel the consequences is sometimes tedious and so hard, but so effective. I know the stress level of being a teacher. No matter what culture we teach in, we navigate stress factors, time constraints, exhaustion, and differing personalities all day long. It's easy to be human and resort to anger, impatience, and quick reactions. But being a teacher hasn't given me the luxury of just reacting the way I want to in the moment. It's given me parameters to put my emotions aside and deal with the human in the moment. Has it always been easy? Have I always been successful? Certainly not. I'm human too. But, I don't have the luxury of really messing up because my livelihood depends on my learning self-control. So, perhaps introducing a different type of classroom management is something I can contribute to this experience.

Another hurdle I was jumping through this week was food. I had a lot of looks of curiosity and disbelief as I brought my lunch to school this week. I didn't realize that lunch is prepared for the teachers and they asked me several times this week if everyone was wealthy enough in Canada to bring their own lunch each day. That was a curve ball I hadn't expected. Here, I thought bringing a peanut butter sandwich each day was meagre fare compared to the big bowls of rice and stew given out to teachers, but I quickly realized that it was privilege to be able to afford peanut butter, jam, bread, fruit, and vegetables every day. Even discussions about free education and children who couldn't always afford meals everyday quickly turned into the comment, "Yeah, but you can't compare poverty in Canada to poverty here." And they were right. I can't. Poverty takes different shapes and forms in different parts of the world. But, like any good Pentecostal missionary, I have brought my copy of "When Helping Hurts" with me to Kenya and I am slowly working my way through it, recognizing the brokenness that I came from in my society and trying to serve brokenness here without doing more damage than good.

On an entirely different note, do you remember the Hugh Grant storyline in "Love, Actually"? You know the secretary that he falls in love with and everyone says she has the biggest rear end in the world? Grant is surprised and offended for her and only sees her beauty. Well, I'm the secretary and Hugh Grant. Every time someone mentions my size, I find myself wanting to protect this obviously beautiful creature. Trust me, I've seen the chiropractic X-rays. God gave me a very well-arranged skeleton. I'm just trying to figure out how to reduce some of the exterior packaging. This week's unexpected conversation went like this:
Teacher (watching me unpack my leftover vegetables and put them in some hot water with noodles): "So you eat a lot of vegetables?"
Me (smiling): Yes. I eat meat a couple of times a week, but mostly vegetables.
Teacher (Looking at my bowl and up at me several times with an indescribable expression on her face): "So, how are you so energetic and...Huuuge (she actually drew out the word) if you only eat vegetables?"
Me (slowly breathing in and smiling to myself): "I think it's how I have eaten at home. I eat more processed foods and I eat on the run back home. I've actually lost weight though. I know it's hard to imagine. And, I've been exercising."

As much as some of these conversations may offend me or test my patience, the truth is they're not meant as an offence. And, I couldn't bear to own up to the real truth anyway. Why am I so slowly losing weight? Why do I eat so little, but am still overweight? How do you explain to someone who just gets enough to eat that back home food was like a drug? It was my earliest drug because it was the only thing readily available to me. Since I was a child, I would drown my pain in food. It was the only thing that numbed my emotions and helped me cope with some painful things happening in my life. How do I explain that even after going through therapy and Freedom Session, it is still the thing that I have to consciously be aware of not abusing? How do I explain that people in my culture tend to drown their pain or emotions or stress in alcohol, relationships, sex, exercise, perfectionism, materialism, workaholism, T.V., drugs, and all manner of other things? Maybe that happens here too. I just don't know what the socially acceptable version of it is. How do I explain that, though I have taken so many steps to add healthy behaviours into my life, my body is slowly changing? How do I explain that since coming to Kenya I can't fall back on food as a drug of choice because I see little children and some adults eat exactly what they need or can get? Even snacking has been virtually eliminated because I can't bring myself to consume treats that I know the kids aren't getting. It's much more black-and-white here. I chickened out, though. I gave my excuses. Perhaps, I'll work up the courage to share the truth in the near future.

I wish everyone could get a few months outside of their context, in a developing country, to see not only what privileges we take for granted all the time, but to really allow God to make lasting change. I hope, with everything within me, that the changes I've made here will stick. That I won't forget the feelings of these days: the loneliness, the joy, the awkward awareness of privilege, the deep desire to advocate, and the ebbs and flows of being yourself in a place that challenges you.

I realize that this post is more serious than my typical humour-driven/sarcastic writing style. Perhaps I'm writing closer to events than I did in my last post. Since I'm a teacher and an eternal optimist, I will open-face sandwich the end of this post. Let me tell you about the beautiful things this week.

Children at the school actually love what I'm teaching them. I'm getting to teach basic French again and I'm loving the review for myself, forming French words and teaching them neat tricks to form their words as well. I'm hearing from parents that they're loving the lessons and I'm just loving the experience of being in the classroom with children who are eager to learn.

I saw my first baboons this week, guys! And, none of them have tried to challenge me for my lunch yet. Actually, I haven't met with a baboon on my walks to school, so I'm silently thanking the Lord for that. But, the other day as my students were writing their compositions in English 6 and a thunderstorm shook the building, I saw a gathering of baboons across the field. They had taken over the benches that the janitor and cooks left empty when the rain started pouring. As the storm picked up, a troop of baboons migrated across the field, fortunately not seeking refuge in my classroom.

My final source of joy was the last day of school. I was able to participate in field games with my students and other teachers. Sport really is the universal language. It doesn't matter how many things I struggled with this week, nothing can change my mood as quickly as the doubled-over hysterical laughter that comes from a teacher half my height trying to tackle me or the competitive war call of a goalkeeper psyching out an opponent. It was so good to move and work with a team and feel my endorphins kick in. And, I was able to see some of my coworkers in a new light, to laugh and have fun with them.

Getting to see the familiar faces at the children's home and wrap all my favourite people in a hug filled my heart after a busy week. I'm grateful for a place that now gets to be my home away from home and for people who feel like family. They listen to my stories and laugh with me and I feel God's grace abundantly recharging me once again.