Art Class

So if you have been keeping up to date on my goings on, (you better be!) you will know that for the last couple months of my service I decided to work at the local Catholic Primary school in my village. I wanted to have drawing/art classes with the kids since creativity is a bit lacking in Togolese schools.

How Togo's schools run are completely different than American schools. You will find first and second graders simply repeating over and over words or phrases the teacher tells them to say. If you ask what the word or phrase means however, the kids have no clue they just parrot what they hear.

Kids simply have a chalkboard to look at. They copy everything that is written down since we have no electrcity or copy machines. Whenever I write anything on the board, the kids will instantly take out their notebooks and start copying, I have to assure them they don't need to write anything, but just take the time to understand what I am teaching.

As far as creativity, there are no art projects for upcoming holidays, most kids don't even own a box of crayons. Art is simply copying what the teacher draws and if it isn't exact it is not "right" and when it is not right, the teacher beats them with a stick.

Now that I am in charge of drawing classes I walk around to see how the kids are doing with their wokr, I don't yell at kids for drawing the way they want to, and I defintely don't hit them. the other day a male teacher walked into my class and looked at people's drawings and starting hiting these 5 year old girls in the face for not drawing straight lines. This same man walked into my class the other day and beat kids who did not go to the farm and work the day before (there is a manual labor day in Togolese schools), and he did this while I was in the middle of my class, so afterwards I had kids crying and upset. I called the teacher over and I told him to never enter my class again when I am in the middle of teaching and he kind of chuckled and walked out. I even talked to the director of the school who told me that he personally doesn't want that teacher here, but there is no one available to replace him.

Spending each day at school, spending time with the kids is something I really love to do and I wish that i had done it since the beginning, but it is challenging when I see something I don't think is right and to try to have patience. When I do say something I often hear: "You don't understand Africa," or "Africa is like that."

So now I am doing my best to try to help these kids and to give them time to draw and do art projects and learn and just be kids. I am giving each of them goodie bags with stickers, crayons, pencils pens, etc, and some backpacks and pencil cases.

Now i am in Lome trying to finish up some work and then I will head back to village.