Teaching

After two days of observation, one day in Genet’s classes and then one day observing other teachers in the school, I had two days of teaching on my own…well I was observed by an average of 10 teachers in addition to the 50-60 students who were in each class. The curriculum in Ethiopia was completely scripted; I was told to follow the book and kindly chastised when I did not, which was always. The two lessons I prepared for (there was some impromptu teaching thrown in to the mix as well) were a grade 9 geography class on temperature and weather and a grade 9 English class on types of nutrients and nutrition. 

Genet's Grade 5 Geography (this class was all in Amharic and I could understand none of it)

Mintesnot's 5th Grade English

In Ethiopia, classes are taught in Amharic until grade 9, at which point all instruction happens in English. High School goes through grade 10 and students who wish to go on to college must pass a state test in order to go onto their last two years of high school and another test to go on to college. Students who do well on the test to go to college are allowed to pick their majors all other students are assigned a major by the state.

Vice Principal Adela's 5th Grade English Class

Teaching under this model gave me a deeper appreciation of the autonomy we have as educators in Vermont and the importance of preserving that professional autonomy. While designing our own curriculum is a lot more work than reading from the state-created script, it is so much easier to respond to the needs of students when you have the freedom to reteach what needs re-teaching and shift gears when an unexpected, but extremely important question arises. I don’t have pictures of me teaching, unfortunately, but I do have pictures of the classrooms in which I was working for the two weeks I was in Ethiopia.

Genet's 9th Grade Geography Class

We were starting right at the start of the second semester. Over the course of the two weeks we were there, the classes went from about 5-10 students to about 60-70 students (yes, in one class, at one time). Genet explained to me that the children and youth in Ethiopia often work and will help their families during the school breaks. Many families are living a subsistence existence and students will take extra time at the start of the semester to work before returning to school. Genet shared that this can be a big problem as it leads to students getting behind in classwork and dropping out eventually. While an education can lead to a bigger income and greater socioeconomic mobility, the reality of eating or not on a day-to-day basis trumps the dream of situational improvement. We had many conversations about this and the challenges students face in Ethiopia.