Day 4
Today was the fourth day of the course, and by now a fairly firm routine has been established. At 8:30 there is roll call, except that this usually happens a few minutes early because the students are already in their desks waiting and even the teacher arrives early and since everyone is so eager to get started, well, they get started early. Roll call seems like an over exaggerated formality to me, but here in Bangladesh they like their formalities. When I arrive at 8:30 (sharp, not early) all the girls stand up and say “Good morning Madam!” in unison. I don’t like that they stand up for me, nor do I like that they call me madam, but it seems to make them happy so I let it go.
At this point, class begins. Morshidul, our sample man cum sewing tea
cher, always starts with a short revision of the previous day. He has never been a teacher before but he’s doing a great job and he loves doing ‘teachery’ things like revisions, pop quizzes, etc., always with good humor and kindness, something that many teachers in this country lack. At the end of the day he and I sit together to discuss things and he jubilantly asks me if I have see how he did this and that, how he gave a lesson on one thing or corrected a student on another. If I have any suggestions he welcomes them positively always confirming “Yes Madam, this is good idea Madam.” (I haven’t yet managed to rid Madam from his vocabulary either…in fact he showed me his mobile phone the other day where he has me listed under Ashley*MADAM*…) It’s a delight to work with someone so eager to do a good job.
On a side note, I’m awed by the courage that Bangladeshis have to do new things and to do things that require standing before an audience. If someone approached me one day and told me that next week I was going to start teaching a course, I’d run away with my tail between my legs. I’d worry that I didn’t know how to teach, that I’d feel embarrassed standing in front of a class of students. But here, people don’t seem to be afraid of doing new things, of putting themselves out there, of being public. I imagine it comes from the total lack of privacy in this country, that you just learn from day one to be watched by others, to live publicly. But still I’m always amazed that you can ask anyone to stand up in front of a crowd to say something and, more often than not, they’ll do it without blinking. On my last visit to Dinajpur one of the PIME Fathers brought me to see the 300 primary students that have lunch at the Parish adjacent to NTS. It was quite a sight to see 300 little ones coming over to the dining hall, locating their plate on a rack amongst all the others, washing their plate, sitting on the floor in line according to their class, lining up to be served rice and vegetables from huge vats, and sitting down once again to wait for everyone to be seated before beginning. For better or for worse they have a discipline that I don’t think could exist in Canada. And, on the day I was there, they had to wait even longer to begin while one girl was selected to come up in front of everyone to introduce me, present me with a bouquet of handpicked flowers and say grace. If she was feeling shy, it certainly didn’t show.
Getting back to the class… At 10:15 there is a tea break, although the only person who has tea (the sweet, milky variety they like here) is Morshidul. If I am in the classroom at this time, many f the girls hang around to look at me or have whatever piece of a conversation we can manage. One of the students, Roushon, often takes advantage of this time to present me with a piece of fruit, usually unfamiliar to my palette, that I try while she laughs at the different faces I make depending on whether or not I happen to like it. If I leave the classroom then the girls go outside to warm up in the sun, chat amongst themselves and generally do the things that girls their age do.
Up until 12:30 they continue with their practical class, where each girl tries to be the first to complete the task they have been given. The teacher floats from one machine to another, enjoying the moments when he finds someone making a mistake as this gives him a chance to hold an impromptu lesson. Truthfully, I understand very little of what is said in the class, but I see that people are laughing often and that the girls are learning quickly so I trust that his way of explaining things is fun and effective.
At 12:30 they break for lunch. Since I have lunch with the Fathers and Brothers at 12:00 I am not there when the morning class ends, but when I finish eating and I pass by the classroom I always find the machines underneath their covers and the classroom neat and tidy. Sometimes I find a few girls sitting outside with their metal ‘tiffin’ boxes open, exposing the rice and vegetables they carry inside. At 1:30 they have a Math or English class. Yesterday it was English and they reviewed the numbers, up to 100, and learned how to make singular words plural. The book the teacher is using must be quite old because one of the words he was teaching was “negro” (plural “negroes”), a word that hasn’t been found in a textbook in North America for a loooong time. In general, the teaching methods are boring and the content doesn’t seem very useful (I can’t imagine when a young Bangladeshi women will next need to conjugate the plural form of negro…), but I also realize I can’t expect miracles. In fact the class I observed is probably one of the best English classes in the area. If nothing else, the teacher student ratio (1:12) is unheard of. Just two days ago I visited a high school with 90 students in one English class. 90. And one poor teacher. For my part, I am preparing some materials for the technical vocabulary with definitions, examples and photos, and I am thinking about coming back in the future to do some more serious training for all of NTS’ English teachers.
In the afternoon, at 3:30, t
hey head back to the machines for more practical classes. I remember when I was in school, how the afternoons seemed to drag on interminably and how I longed for them to end so that I could get outside and do all the things that seemed so much more interesting to me. At 4:30 in this class I can also tell that the day is coming to an end and everyone is tired, but they manage to focus, much better than I would be able to, possibly because for them being in class is much more interesting than being at home (the only other place they get to be, really).
And then, at 5:30, the day ends and the girls head to their home or their boarding house, and the sun sets and we all wait to start again the next day.
Tomorrow is Friday and instead of Math or English and practical class in the afternoon they will have their first afternoon of Life Skills, where they will learn about the things that will help a newly independent woman survive: women’s rights, health and nutrition, sexual and reproductive health, problem solving, decision making, budgeting, etc. For this course we have hired a young woman working with an NGO here in Dinajpur. She has been working for a few years in the area of women’s development, she speaks English, she has studied abroad – in short, she’s amazing. She even drives a motorcycle, an achievement that the word ‘anomaly’ doesn’t even begin to describe (in more than one year in Bangladesh I have only ever met two women who drive motorcycles). Bro. Massimo and I feel very fortunate to have found her, and she seems to feel equally as fortunate to have the chance to teach this class. A perfect match.
Some days I feel like we have been very lucky to have this project turn out so well. Other days I believe it is the result of the effort put in by those people who have been planning it. I suppose in the end it’s a bit of both. Either way, it’s going well and for that I am grateful.
At this point, class begins. Morshidul, our sample man cum sewing tea
cher, always starts with a short revision of the previous day. He has never been a teacher before but he’s doing a great job and he loves doing ‘teachery’ things like revisions, pop quizzes, etc., always with good humor and kindness, something that many teachers in this country lack. At the end of the day he and I sit together to discuss things and he jubilantly asks me if I have see how he did this and that, how he gave a lesson on one thing or corrected a student on another. If I have any suggestions he welcomes them positively always confirming “Yes Madam, this is good idea Madam.” (I haven’t yet managed to rid Madam from his vocabulary either…in fact he showed me his mobile phone the other day where he has me listed under Ashley*MADAM*…) It’s a delight to work with someone so eager to do a good job.On a side note, I’m awed by the courage that Bangladeshis have to do new things and to do things that require standing before an audience. If someone approached me one day and told me that next week I was going to start teaching a course, I’d run away with my tail between my legs. I’d worry that I didn’t know how to teach, that I’d feel embarrassed standing in front of a class of students. But here, people don’t seem to be afraid of doing new things, of putting themselves out there, of being public. I imagine it comes from the total lack of privacy in this country, that you just learn from day one to be watched by others, to live publicly. But still I’m always amazed that you can ask anyone to stand up in front of a crowd to say something and, more often than not, they’ll do it without blinking. On my last visit to Dinajpur one of the PIME Fathers brought me to see the 300 primary students that have lunch at the Parish adjacent to NTS. It was quite a sight to see 300 little ones coming over to the dining hall, locating their plate on a rack amongst all the others, washing their plate, sitting on the floor in line according to their class, lining up to be served rice and vegetables from huge vats, and sitting down once again to wait for everyone to be seated before beginning. For better or for worse they have a discipline that I don’t think could exist in Canada. And, on the day I was there, they had to wait even longer to begin while one girl was selected to come up in front of everyone to introduce me, present me with a bouquet of handpicked flowers and say grace. If she was feeling shy, it certainly didn’t show.
Getting back to the class… At 10:15 there is a tea break, although the only person who has tea (the sweet, milky variety they like here) is Morshidul. If I am in the classroom at this time, many f the girls hang around to look at me or have whatever piece of a conversation we can manage. One of the students, Roushon, often takes advantage of this time to present me with a piece of fruit, usually unfamiliar to my palette, that I try while she laughs at the different faces I make depending on whether or not I happen to like it. If I leave the classroom then the girls go outside to warm up in the sun, chat amongst themselves and generally do the things that girls their age do.
Up until 12:30 they continue with their practical class, where each girl tries to be the first to complete the task they have been given. The teacher floats from one machine to another, enjoying the moments when he finds someone making a mistake as this gives him a chance to hold an impromptu lesson. Truthfully, I understand very little of what is said in the class, but I see that people are laughing often and that the girls are learning quickly so I trust that his way of explaining things is fun and effective.
At 12:30 they break for lunch. Since I have lunch with the Fathers and Brothers at 12:00 I am not there when the morning class ends, but when I finish eating and I pass by the classroom I always find the machines underneath their covers and the classroom neat and tidy. Sometimes I find a few girls sitting outside with their metal ‘tiffin’ boxes open, exposing the rice and vegetables they carry inside. At 1:30 they have a Math or English class. Yesterday it was English and they reviewed the numbers, up to 100, and learned how to make singular words plural. The book the teacher is using must be quite old because one of the words he was teaching was “negro” (plural “negroes”), a word that hasn’t been found in a textbook in North America for a loooong time. In general, the teaching methods are boring and the content doesn’t seem very useful (I can’t imagine when a young Bangladeshi women will next need to conjugate the plural form of negro…), but I also realize I can’t expect miracles. In fact the class I observed is probably one of the best English classes in the area. If nothing else, the teacher student ratio (1:12) is unheard of. Just two days ago I visited a high school with 90 students in one English class. 90. And one poor teacher. For my part, I am preparing some materials for the technical vocabulary with definitions, examples and photos, and I am thinking about coming back in the future to do some more serious training for all of NTS’ English teachers.
In the afternoon, at 3:30, t
hey head back to the machines for more practical classes. I remember when I was in school, how the afternoons seemed to drag on interminably and how I longed for them to end so that I could get outside and do all the things that seemed so much more interesting to me. At 4:30 in this class I can also tell that the day is coming to an end and everyone is tired, but they manage to focus, much better than I would be able to, possibly because for them being in class is much more interesting than being at home (the only other place they get to be, really).And then, at 5:30, the day ends and the girls head to their home or their boarding house, and the sun sets and we all wait to start again the next day.
Tomorrow is Friday and instead of Math or English and practical class in the afternoon they will have their first afternoon of Life Skills, where they will learn about the things that will help a newly independent woman survive: women’s rights, health and nutrition, sexual and reproductive health, problem solving, decision making, budgeting, etc. For this course we have hired a young woman working with an NGO here in Dinajpur. She has been working for a few years in the area of women’s development, she speaks English, she has studied abroad – in short, she’s amazing. She even drives a motorcycle, an achievement that the word ‘anomaly’ doesn’t even begin to describe (in more than one year in Bangladesh I have only ever met two women who drive motorcycles). Bro. Massimo and I feel very fortunate to have found her, and she seems to feel equally as fortunate to have the chance to teach this class. A perfect match.
Some days I feel like we have been very lucky to have this project turn out so well. Other days I believe it is the result of the effort put in by those people who have been planning it. I suppose in the end it’s a bit of both. Either way, it’s going well and for that I am grateful.
posted by ash at 6:18 PM
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