School is hard for me to get through everyday. I love the kids as always but struggle with the teaching methods of our local Kenyan teachers. Its not just here, it is common throughout Kenya from what I have learned to discipline the children by beating them. Most commonly when they get an answer wrong or hesitate with confusion. Sometimes it is a wack on the hands or butt with a whipping stick other times it is a slap to the back of the head and always some form of verbal abuse. My least favorite is, “you are wasting our time”. These kids came to learn, if they already knew all the answers... they wouldn’t need to be in school.
After my first week of viewing this, not feeling like I could be involved in class at all, confused on where my place was, I knew it wasn’t my right to tell them that their years of customs were offensive to me. I decided to step outside of the classroom, bringing the less developed kids along with me. I know that it is only a temporary fix but I figured it saves them a few stern strikes a day, gives them some one on one time, hopefully allowing them to catch up a bit and prevent abuse in the future.
Knowing that I have to accept cultural differences I have inquired about the way the children are reprimanded. The common census is that there is no point in babying them now as they will be in for a rude awakening when they are ready to go onto a proper school.
Thursday was an exam day. Helping out by writing the name of each child on the top of their exam, I have only become familiar with their baptismal names (John, Mary, Jacob, Elijah, Ruth), they also have swahili names. After finishing my small job, Teacher Joyce asked me to also put the Swahili name on their paper. Not knowing any of them, I asked her what each was, and when I didn’t spell it correctly she had the audacity to give me a light smack on the back of the head and take the pen from me. Taking me completely off guard, I wasn’t prepared to tell her how I felt about that until class had started and the moment was gone. To say the least we are not getting off to a great start. She however, is unaware of how inappropriate that is in my opinion but I will not make a rift that would extract from my time with the kids. They are who is truly important.
