Yesterday, I finished my practicum at the local secondary school. For the last two weeks, I taught eighth grade human physiology to a class of 35 students. I shared the class with three other trainees. My students received two English and two biology lessons – 1 from me, and the other from another biology teacher – everyday. Students sat three to a desk in desks made for two. They crowded more to a desk when the ceiling dripped during the hard rains, putting some desks out of commission. I required that students keep notebook-paper nametags on their desks so that I could learn their names more quickly.
I taught a series of lessons on muscles and bones, the nervous system, hormones, and reproduction. During a lesson in which I discussed types of bone tissue and the composition of joints, I brought parts of a chicken's skeleton from Sunday dinner to show cartilage, compact and spongy bone, and that the joints of the spinal column are semi-mobile. One day, we talked about prostheses that students often see used by mutilados (those who were hurt during the war, often from landmines). When talking about how the sense of taste is different from smell, I passed out chocolate cookies for the class to eat with their noses plugged.
Peace Corps staff and other biology teacher volunteers attended our classes and gave us feedback on our performance everyday. We gave short tests at the end of both weeks in order to gage how well the students understood our material. The students who attended our classes were, for the most part, self-motivated; because school finished sessions about a month ago, the students who came to these classes did so on their own volition (as an extra incentive, we provided cookies and pens and notebooks). The students, however, not only did very well on their tests, but many approached us after class to learn more about the topics we taught. One day, after a lesson on memory and the brain, five students individually stopped me after class to ask why memory loss occurs in advanced stages of malaria.
I've gotten to know a handful of Mozambican science teachers here. They introduced themselves to me one day when I was working on a computer in the school's computer lab. I had been asked by the woman in charge of the lab to fix a computer – she had the parts, she said, just no one who knew how to install them – and when I was successful in my work, the teachers formed a half-circle behind me and my computer screen. The secretary came over and brought her computer. So did the director of the school and a guy from a local radio station. Over the course of the week, with the help of another volunteer and a few science teachers – all of whom knew quite a lot about computers and were glad to have around fluent English-speakers who could translate what they didn't know – we fixed half-a-dozen computers. One needed new memory. Another had a nasty virus. The only problem with one of the computers was that the power button had been misaligned. The science teachers did most of the work, but I received a lot of credit. I was happy that when I stopped by yesterday to complimentar (say hi to) the new friends that I made in the computer lab, all 7 computers were in use. On my first day in the lab, there were only two computers that worked.
I've also gotten to know the guys at the radio station. The afternoon that I fixed their computer, they asked me to come by their offices. When I stopped by, DJ Francisco, who sounded like an energetic American-radio morning-show host, but in Portuguese, and had received some training with the BBC, was giving an announcement on mental health. When the music started playing again and all of the microphones were off, he told me that his friend had attended my class that day on the central nervous system and had enjoyed it. He surprised me during the next break and announced that I would be holding classes for the rest of the week. On my way home, a boy working at the service station ran out of his booth after me. “Are you teacher Mateus?” he asked. “And can I come to your classes tomorrow?”
