Azania High School - Dar es Salaam

It was my first day of school today. The day warmed up very slowly. The first thirty minutes I was waiting for my host – Joram. In that course of time, I was passed quite nonchalantly but numerous students and staff. I wondered what had happened to all the boldness that I am accustomed to on the streets. “Rafiki, this” “Rafiki, that.” It was an eerie silence. Wasn’t my foreigness intriguing? Give me something. At least, a raised eyebrow? Turns out that all I needed was an introduction. Once Joram took me around to all the classrooms, I could see their interest. I was excited to engage in dialogue with students about everything from Christopher Columbus to the Tanzanian school system to falling in love during school to "Ghostfaced Killer." Well, the latter was something I saw tagged on the classroom wall and wanted to talk about but never got to. By the time, Joram dragged me around the school for two hours I felt that I had met every one of the three thousand students at the school (minus those who were skipping and those who were coming for the afternoon session). The largest classroom had over 100 students trying to learn Biology. Turns out the US is not the only place with a shortage of science teachers!

It was a fun experience for me though I never got to do any observation, which was what I was looking forward to. It did seem to be pretty straightforward lecture style from what I could tell by looking at the board notes and the chair configurations. It was eerily similar to schools in Corea. My favorite exchanges. One student took issue with my point that Christopher Columbus did not discover America. He said that Columbus was the first one to name it and therefore he “discovered” it. Another student questioned how my education could be good if I did not learn anything about African history when I was in school (I had earlier told him this). Interesting to hear students with independent thinking. I wonder if this is a new development in education here since it have heard from others who have been here longer than I have that the lack of critical thinking is the major issue with the school system.