a Peace Corps Tanzania blog - what a difference a week makes

Teaching in Tanzania is the job you end up with if you were smart enough to get through Secondary school but not smart enough to get to University to study a specific profession like medicine or law. Go to any secondary school and ask the teachers 1.) If they plan on leaving the school in the next 2 years? 2.)If they enjoy their job? and the answers are likely to be the same. 1.)Yes 2.)No

Teachers just do not hang around for long. Also the rate of secondary schools and advanced level schools opening up is much greater than the rate at which the total number teachers are available. Take my school which comparably speaking is an awesome school.....when I first arrived in Dec 2006 we had over 20 teachers for 600 students. Then August 2007 comes and 11 leave for "further studies". The government has a deal where one can work as a teacher for 2 years and then they will cover some of the costs of an university education. The assumption is that the teachers study education or something they will teach in the future and then return to school. HOWEVER, a lot of teachers just work for 2-3 years, then go get a degree, receive a job assignment to work at some school and then run-away from that job or responsibility. Not sure how easy it is to get away with but, it seems like a simple task.

It's a tricky situation because teaching here is so hard when there are only 7 teachers for 600 students. It's easy to understand why some teachers would get exhausted or stressed out to the point of quitting. At the same time if all the "appointed" teachers stayed at their jobs then the total number of teachers would increase and lessen the stress.

This whole entry was inspired by the the fact that last week my school lost 3 more teachers. 2 of which taught math. So now there are 3 math teachers left at my school (myself included ) but one of those teachers is now the only physics teacher for the school. In theory that means I would have to increase my periods from 18 (plus 3 adult classes) to 30 (plus 3 adult classes). I do not want to teach that much. I enjoy my sanity. But I feel guilty making another Tanzanian teacher add those classes to an already busy schedule just to stay within my Peace Corps 18-24 recommended schedule. So I have decided to teach the 30 periods but stop teaching the optional adult classes. I still have Friday off though (it's all about the small joys)

and here's a picture of Subi who lives next door. she is my heart. and definitely on the top 3 list of people I will miss when I leave Tanzania in November. She makes never fails to produce a smile from me. My friend Amber took it while we all went hunting for guava last month.