Nearing the End (Week 9 & 10)

Week 9: Last week of teaching

Week 9, in addition to marking my 1 year in Kenya, was the last week of teaching at my school. Originally we were going to teach through the end of week 10 but because there hasn't been enough rain, the school administration worried that the drinking water would soon run out and so they moved the schools closing date up by a week. This sent all the teachers into high gear and we were all busy trying to cram the rest of the topics in the syllabus into the last week of school. I am happy to report that I was able to finish the syllabus in all of my classes, which is a real accomplishment, considering how huge the Kenya syllabus is and most teachers in Kenya do not finish the syllabus, leaving topics that have to be covered the next year. (This syllabus "debt" is never really made up and eventually the students suffer in form 4 when they can't finish all the topics in a subject). Over the weekend I played a review game with both of the form 2 classes and also with the two form 1 classes. The students enjoy the game, or maybe they just enjoy the stickers they get for winning, but I also like to think they are learning and revising as well so they can do well on their exams.

Week 10: Exams

All the forms started their exams this week and they will continue until the middle of next week. Form 3 students are taking exams that will determine if the school will allow them to become form 4s next year, and therefore, take the KCSE at Bande Girls. The government passed a law that no student should be held back because of failing grades, but some schools have adopted passing marks that the students must obtain in order to proceed to the next class. While it is understandable that many parents don't want to, or don't have the means to, pay for an extra year of secondary school, some students really do need to repeat a grade if they are going to have any chance of doing well on the KSCE. Speaking of which, the KCSE was completed this week and the 26 form 4 students have now left the school. They will return around February or March of next year to get their results from the school, but they are no longer students, they are now full fledged adults in Kenyan society.

My form 1 students continued to perform well in biology, but I think they can tell that everything is getting harder with more and more information being added and the concepts becoming more complicated, and, of course, some of them need a wake up call to start working harder in class. Overall, I was really happy with their performance and many of them continue to improve from their previous exam grades. The form 2 class did not make me as happy. The highest grade in my form 2 biology class was a 33%. I was really disappointed in their performance. It can be really discouraging to feel like you are working so hard to provide the students with everything they need to succeed, only to have them fail. A good illustration was one of the questions on the exam, it was a diagram and they had to identify what the diagram was of. The diagram in question was of a nephron in the kidney. I had made multiple posters of this diagram, made a model out of straws and string that was posted in the class and that the students could also take down to study, I also checked all of their notebooks to make sure they had drawn it correctly, and during the review game all the teams were to draw and label the same diagram. The diagrams and the model were displayed in the classroom for the last 3-4 weeks, and, when it came to the exam, some students still couldn't write that the diagram was of the nephron. Sigh. This is the pinnacle of my discouragement since being here. But, the results were not all bad, there was one major bright spot. All but 2 students were able to properly draw the graph from the graph question, which is an aspect of the exam that we have been working to improve all of this term. (There was one exam where none of my students got any points on the graph question). I was really happy with how they did on that part of the exam and since there is always a graph question included on the KCSE which counts for a lot of the points in the 3rd paper, this is a great improvement. I guess this tells me that I need to work with my students on their study skill and their test taking skills and teach them how to read and study for understanding, not just for memorization purposes. There is always more work to do...

After I finished marking all of my exams and calculating the final end term grades for my students, I packed a bag and cleaned my house as I am now headed back to Loitokitok to help with PST for the new group of Math/Science Education volunteers. I am excited to go back to Loitokitok and see my home stay family and also to meet the new volunteers. By the time I return to site school will be closed, so I said a sad good bye to my students until school starts again in January. My plans for December include our mid-service medical exams in Nairobi (can't wait to see everyone from my group again), another Girls' Camp similar to the one I helped organize in August, at a local girls secondary school, some research on future projects and hopefully a nice vacation for Christmas and New Years.