Many of my readers have raised a concern that my posts are too long to read in some free time. Sorry. I have a lot of time, and like to express completed thoughts, being as objective and non-ranty as possible. This usually results in long posts. But I took the initiative and split this one into two parts. It’s technically one big post, but I wrote it in such a way that you can read the first part first, and then come back to the second. I even left a cliffhanger about solitaire! Please scroll down to read Part I before reading Part II, or just read Part II and be partially confused, if you feel partial to that method. But before I depart on some tangent, let me impart with you the rest of the my story (did you get all that?).
I gave them a test. I was still unbelieving about their thought
process, so I wanted to see how they would handle some random
thinking. I posed seven questions. The entire exam was in English and
Kiswahili, with the option to reply in either one. I would like to
think I had removed language as an issue (another topic for another entry for another day). The exam was as follows
(kiswahili removed):
1) What is your name?
2) What do you like to do in your free time?
3) Why is the sky blue?
4) Why is the grass green?
5) Why do people build houses?
6) Why do you have friends?
7) Why do you fall in love?
Four out of my six classes received this exam. I missed my monday class due to Peace Corps related travels and nobody passed me the memo that we were not having friday classes that week due to something about recruiting for the Adminsitrative Police. They laughed and they chuckled. Some interesting things happened though.
First of all, there was a question about the first question. Apparently in kenyan english it is appropriate to ask for someones nameS if you want their first name and last name. Some of my students overcame this hurdle and answered with both their names anyways, some had questions about this which I clarified, and gave them a cultural lesson that it was my fault because in America when we say Name, we mean both first and last name. Of course, they don’t call it last name in Kenya either, but nor do surname or family name seem to work. I’m baffled how to address that issue. One time I tried “Father’s name,” but then people wrote both names of their father, first and last.
Question two posed no issues. Though there was some obvious brown-nosing going on in my opinion with such responses as “play solitaire,” or “use computer.” Whatever, I won’t hold it against them. And heck, maybe they really do like playing solitaire in their free time. Who knows? They wouldn’t tell me even if I asked them.
Question three had three stock answers. I’ll let you mull over them yourself. Answer 1: Because it is as far as the eye can see. Answer 2: Because it reflects the color of the ocean. Answer 3: Because God made it that way and man hasn’t made it better. Each student, of the almost 100 that took this exam answered question three with one of these answers. Slightly different wording, but not significantly different. I will come back to question three.
Question four had a similar set of responses, though they got a little more scientific. Answer 1: Because of the chlorophyll. Answer 2: Because they have life. Answer 3: Because God made it that way.
Question five illicited expected answers of “For protection from animals,” “for protection from people, ” and as such.
Question six did not quite reach the level of thinking I had hoped for, but apparently my students only have friends for support in times of need. I think one or two of the 100 answered differently, but for the most part, apparently friendship in this country is only for supporting each other in times of need. Maybe there are no times of joy, or maybe no times of fun. Maybe there only are times of need? I don’t know. But I did find that response… interesting.
Question seven truly revealed the cognitive dissonance surrounding love in this country. Some of my students answered like, “For support and someone to share my ideas with,” but others were more apparent examples that the youth in this country are fully aware they are sexual beings. Listed below are some choice responses in my opinion. These are not meant to mock in any way, but rather to applaud the frankness of character of my students. For once, I got a straight answer from a Kenyan.
“I fall in love because of that inner emotion and lust for loving.”
“I fall in love because of having sex satisfaction and having good relationship with other people.”
“I do fall in love so that I can find a partner who can comfort me in good and bad time and also for sexual satisfaction.”
“I fall in love so that I can have conjugal rights (sex).”
“I fall in love so that I can satisfaction of sexual desire.”
After administering this exam for the fourth time though, the answers to question three got to me. Too many people were saying the sky was blue because it reflects the color of the ocean. And I’m not saying Americans know why the sky is blue (it has something to do with color dissipating from gases in the atmosphere and something called the Rayleigh effect), but at the same time, I wanted to see how they would react to me challenging their belief. So for class four, my thursday afternoon class, I challenged them: If the sky is blue because it reflects the color of the ocean, why is it not green or brown or red or yellow over the land? No one had a response. So I went on a little spiel about asking “Why?” It had nothing to do with computers really, though I tried to tie them in. I just wanted them to start challenging accepted beliefs until they believed them for themselves and not just because someone told them to believe them.
I don’t care if your Kenyan or American, related to me or not, this is the one thing I truly believe in and want everyone in this world to do. Don’t just blindly accept something. Challenge it, play your own devil’s advocate, and if at the end of the day you still believe it, fine, great, but only believe it because you have convinced yourself, not because someone else told you to just believe it. And I know that we all cannot conduct our own experiments and whatnot, so come up with a system that you trust. If you trust and believe the BBC for providing factually correct news, fine, but why?
Be able to defend it. And your defense does not even have to stand up against much, because ultimately trust and “the truth,” become a thing of faith, but at the same time, have some defense. And I know there is no winning this argument. That one can just argue back at me that this is my students’ level of trust. That my perception is just skewed by having grown up in the West. Why shouldn’t they trust their teachers the same way I trusted mine? Why are they wrong and I am right? Well, I never told my class they were wrong. I even specifically told them that I did not say they were wrong. I just wanted more of a defense than blank stares. We will see if I get the homework handed in tomorrow afternoon.
So what am I teaching this week then? It’s back to lecture and some hands on time. This weeks topic is word processing. I refuse to teach simply “Microsoft Word,” because it’s going to be gone in the next five years anyways, or at least as we know it, and I want to prepare them for that. So I have abstracted and taken my lessons up a level from the top-down perspective. Instead of Microsoft Word, I am trying to teach the concept of word processing using MS Word as an example (because at the moment it’s what I have). I will try to do the same with spreadsheets and whatnot. But I have also implemented some exams. They have one review quiz at the beginning of class and one write-down-three-things-you-learned-today quiz at the end. I need to start gauging what these kids are taking in. Of course, the end of class exam nets me responses like, “How to word processor,” and “Solitaire,” so I may need to refine those instructions.
One Computer at a Time 