Sunday, August 2, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Beauty
I know it will be said that I've been smitten,
by your tampac glisten.
But if the truth be told,
the five senses uphold,
the final say on excellence so chasten,
that the learned are confounded.
You are so silken far above the kitten
And your movement so flowless,
That the broken line of my vision can follow your motion
To the apex of your zoken.
Scents of roses float from your wake
To supply my life-breath, sourced from your driftings.
I salute your crooning, which soothes my bruisings
and heals my ache.
To be in your presence, is a peace so precious
as though you know the essence of life.
For beauty they say, is in the eye of the
Beholden
by your tampac glisten.
But if the truth be told,
the five senses uphold,
the final say on excellence so chasten,
that the learned are confounded.
You are so silken far above the kitten
And your movement so flowless,
That the broken line of my vision can follow your motion
To the apex of your zoken.
Scents of roses float from your wake
To supply my life-breath, sourced from your driftings.
I salute your crooning, which soothes my bruisings
and heals my ache.
To be in your presence, is a peace so precious
as though you know the essence of life.
For beauty they say, is in the eye of the
Beholden
Saturday, May 23, 2009
SNOW SHIFT
Mawazo came out of his sleep rather reluctantly, where again his dream had floated him back to Salmini village, in his home country Abantonea. His mobile phone alarm had roused him from camaraderie with his childhood friends. The alarm was a muffled siren-like sound that began softly, but gradually grew to a crescendo. If he didn't stop it, it would wake up everyone in the whole flat. He reached out his hand to the low-lying coffee table, where it lay wailing, and its dim light throwing a strange blue light on the settee opposite him.
He pressed the tiny stop button and ended the disturbing sound.
Across the room where the blue light shone, an outline of a man's face stared back at him. His heart raced as he stared at the face which was very pale; the unmistaken face of a well-known personality in his home country. Now in real panic, he raised his head to look at it keenly, only to realise that it was the reflections of the light on the decorations and the buttons on the settee. Eerie and strange images, had of late been playing on his mind, and this unsettled him a lot. The state of his mind followed the turbulent political events from his country some of which bordered on the macabre.
His bedsit room felt chillier than usual and he began to think about the warm cosy cottage that housed his wife and children in Salmini. At this poignant moment, he could give anything to be where they were. But he had to earn a living and fulfil the promise he had made to them twenty-four months ago: to buy a piece of land and build them a permanent house.
The irony of his circumstances made him laugh nervously at himself. Here he was, living in a bedsitter, in Vikony, a small country, but whose currency enabled him to raise enough wealth to improve the lifestyles of his own kith and kin. Were it not for the fact that the menial wages he toiled for in Vikony translated into a comfortable income in Abantonea, he would have thrown in the towel and headed straight back home. But a sense of pride and the hope of a better future propelled him to hang on. The time difference between Abantonea and Vikony meant that it was approaching dusk at this time in his home country. Mawazo wondered what Amina and his children were doing now. They were probably seated around the hearth on the couch, telling folktales and shelling the maize and stacking them in sisal sacks, ready for storage in traditional barns.
He jumped out of bed, dashed into the bathroom, brushed his teeth and dry-cleaned himself using a wet sponge. Although he normally took less than five minutes to take a shower, he thought it was already getting late, and he needed to move much faster. Once he was done with his bathing, he packed a sandwich and some fruit juice into his back-pack, dressed himself warmly against the winter cold, and headed for the bus-top down the road. Outside, the pavements and the narrow streets of Dale City were snow-covered, and cold rain mercilessly lashed at him. As he walked briskly towards the bus-top, he saw two white girls, probably coming from a late-night party, walking towards his direction. When they noticed him, they quickly crossed the road at a trot, to avoid meeting him.
He sighed sadly, but nevertheless told himself that they were doing what was in their best interest. However, he could never comprehend what threat he posed to those who evaded him. Only he knew the deep sense of rejection he felt, owing to the fact that warmth was the by-word for Salminian character. Warm weather embraced you all the year round, and complemented the laughter and the warm nature of the people, he thought. Abantoneans only ran away from dangerous persons or a deranged man.
As he approached the narrow glass shed bus stop, he saw two thin chocolate coloured females. He recognised them as the newcomers who had joined Minster Coleslaw factory the previous day. From their features, it was really difficult to tell their gender. Apart from the high pitched low voices, their thin bodies betrayed neither feminine bosoms nor waistlines. With half their faces hidden under woollen hats to keep their heads warm, it was really difficult to tell whether they were actually teenage boys or girls. Their faces brightened a little when they recognised him. They chattered in a guttural language which came out in a trembling hiss as their teeth clattered because of the cold.
Mawazo wondered which gale storms had washed them onto these shores, and why they were here on their own. Nevertheless, they chattered away, totally oblivious that Mawazo was concerned about them.
As five-thirty in the morning approached, more people filled the now crowded bus shelter. It wasn't really a shelter as the wayfarers were getting wet from the sleet that was falling on them at right angles. The bus taking them to Minster soon arrived and stopped at the edge of the shed. The winter chill this morning was so biting that Mawazo felt pain in his fingers and knees. It was as if sharp needles were pricking his fingers and knee caps. Three males arrived just as the bus stopped. It was hard to distinguish their half-hidden faces because of the hoods covering their heads. They queued to board the bus, three pairs of catlike eyes twinkling out of dark caverns where their faces should have been.
The bus, an old double-decker Ford Leyland was hired by The Personnel Agency to carry temporary workers from Dale City to Minster Coleslaw factory twenty miles north. Inside the lower deck of the bus were two dozen or so hooded personnel who sat or crouched silently in their seats as though journeying to a fateful destination against their will. Apart from responding to quiet greetings from acquaintances, they mostly remained silent or slept during the twenty minute's journey.
In a short while, the darkness outside and the silence in the bus created a repressive atmosphere which engulfed the reticent human cargo travelling north. Fifteen minutes or so later, as the Ford Leyland droned towards its destination, a dark stocky bespectacled man who introduced himself as Willy Notter (he pronounced it Nutter) appeared from nowhere with a paper in his hand. He read what he said were the Agency and factory regulations which had to be strictly followed.
'If you f......g can't follow this simple rules', he said, cursing profusely, 'then you better catch the next f......g bus back to Dale.'
'The Agency cannot cover for your big-headed stubbornness', he went on, 'and we pay you for obeying the rules and doing a good job.'
He went on to welcome all new comers to the factory, and wished them a rewarding Christmas work. He suggested that if anyone wanted to continue working till mid-night they could see him immediately as there were few places to fill. When the bus came to a stop next to Minster Coleslaw factory Willy Nutter led the group in a single file to the factory changing room. Here a factory orderly was standing sombrely, in all whites, like a surgeon waiting to perform a difficult operation. Absurd as the comparison was, his duty of directing workers to different sections of the Coleslaw factory was a much loathsome job. Even though all sections of the factory were equally detested, he was still seen as the executor of workers misery. Like a doctor conveying bad news to the next of kin, he the bore brunt of the workers' hatred.
In the meantime, perhaps to fill in the time or for the benefit of the orderly, Willy proceeded to instruct the newcomers what size of Wellington boots or overcoats to wear. Satisfied that he had done his bit, he laughed uproariously and wished them a good day as he headed for the bus.
Even though Mawazo had gone through this drill numerous times before, it appeared like a dream to him. The agency supervisor's strong language, the cold weather and the bizarre hour of starting work all combined to make his experience surreal. On the other hand, the mute-like deportment of the workers, most of who were foreigners reminded him of his history teacher telling their class of a people who were shipped in chains across the seas to work for their masters in far lands. In his lifetime Mawazo had done odds and bits of work. His claims that the work he once did in a morgue could never compare to the chilly atmosphere at Minster factory was as unbelievable as it was chilling.
True the temperatures at Minster Coleslaw were deliberately kept far much below freezing point, even in winter. For some strange reasons the supervisors' ill-tempers added to the misery of the weather. Mawazo thought that the management either intentionally employed foul-mouthed temperamental supervisors or the cold rooms changed their behaviour.
This morning as these thoughts went through Mawazo's mind, he could not help wondering how unreasonable life could be. He thought about the favourable climate at home, amidst the backdrop of short supply of well-paying work. Working in a cold room for eight hours would not be such a punishing ordeal in Abantonea, he thought. He could even do the extra shift if it was as well-paying as it was here. But life was not a straight line.
He grabbed the nearest large white coat and slid his feet into size nine wellington boots. Just as he was trying to evade the gaze of the factory orderly, he heard him say:
'Hey you! Yes, Mawazo. You are in the mixing room today', he stressed gleefully as if paying back a wrong-doing. Knowing that the man's word was final, Mawazo entered the washroom to wash his hands, in readiness for the frozen conditions of the mixing room. He steeled his mind and body for the next eight hour ordeal by visualising the sunny weather in Salmina.
Quietly whistling the tune madh mari kata tin (have your own drink however little) he put his heart and soul on mixing mashed potatoes, cabbages and milk, looking forward to another dawn shift.
He pressed the tiny stop button and ended the disturbing sound.
Across the room where the blue light shone, an outline of a man's face stared back at him. His heart raced as he stared at the face which was very pale; the unmistaken face of a well-known personality in his home country. Now in real panic, he raised his head to look at it keenly, only to realise that it was the reflections of the light on the decorations and the buttons on the settee. Eerie and strange images, had of late been playing on his mind, and this unsettled him a lot. The state of his mind followed the turbulent political events from his country some of which bordered on the macabre.
His bedsit room felt chillier than usual and he began to think about the warm cosy cottage that housed his wife and children in Salmini. At this poignant moment, he could give anything to be where they were. But he had to earn a living and fulfil the promise he had made to them twenty-four months ago: to buy a piece of land and build them a permanent house.
The irony of his circumstances made him laugh nervously at himself. Here he was, living in a bedsitter, in Vikony, a small country, but whose currency enabled him to raise enough wealth to improve the lifestyles of his own kith and kin. Were it not for the fact that the menial wages he toiled for in Vikony translated into a comfortable income in Abantonea, he would have thrown in the towel and headed straight back home. But a sense of pride and the hope of a better future propelled him to hang on. The time difference between Abantonea and Vikony meant that it was approaching dusk at this time in his home country. Mawazo wondered what Amina and his children were doing now. They were probably seated around the hearth on the couch, telling folktales and shelling the maize and stacking them in sisal sacks, ready for storage in traditional barns.
He jumped out of bed, dashed into the bathroom, brushed his teeth and dry-cleaned himself using a wet sponge. Although he normally took less than five minutes to take a shower, he thought it was already getting late, and he needed to move much faster. Once he was done with his bathing, he packed a sandwich and some fruit juice into his back-pack, dressed himself warmly against the winter cold, and headed for the bus-top down the road. Outside, the pavements and the narrow streets of Dale City were snow-covered, and cold rain mercilessly lashed at him. As he walked briskly towards the bus-top, he saw two white girls, probably coming from a late-night party, walking towards his direction. When they noticed him, they quickly crossed the road at a trot, to avoid meeting him.
He sighed sadly, but nevertheless told himself that they were doing what was in their best interest. However, he could never comprehend what threat he posed to those who evaded him. Only he knew the deep sense of rejection he felt, owing to the fact that warmth was the by-word for Salminian character. Warm weather embraced you all the year round, and complemented the laughter and the warm nature of the people, he thought. Abantoneans only ran away from dangerous persons or a deranged man.
As he approached the narrow glass shed bus stop, he saw two thin chocolate coloured females. He recognised them as the newcomers who had joined Minster Coleslaw factory the previous day. From their features, it was really difficult to tell their gender. Apart from the high pitched low voices, their thin bodies betrayed neither feminine bosoms nor waistlines. With half their faces hidden under woollen hats to keep their heads warm, it was really difficult to tell whether they were actually teenage boys or girls. Their faces brightened a little when they recognised him. They chattered in a guttural language which came out in a trembling hiss as their teeth clattered because of the cold.
Mawazo wondered which gale storms had washed them onto these shores, and why they were here on their own. Nevertheless, they chattered away, totally oblivious that Mawazo was concerned about them.
As five-thirty in the morning approached, more people filled the now crowded bus shelter. It wasn't really a shelter as the wayfarers were getting wet from the sleet that was falling on them at right angles. The bus taking them to Minster soon arrived and stopped at the edge of the shed. The winter chill this morning was so biting that Mawazo felt pain in his fingers and knees. It was as if sharp needles were pricking his fingers and knee caps. Three males arrived just as the bus stopped. It was hard to distinguish their half-hidden faces because of the hoods covering their heads. They queued to board the bus, three pairs of catlike eyes twinkling out of dark caverns where their faces should have been.
The bus, an old double-decker Ford Leyland was hired by The Personnel Agency to carry temporary workers from Dale City to Minster Coleslaw factory twenty miles north. Inside the lower deck of the bus were two dozen or so hooded personnel who sat or crouched silently in their seats as though journeying to a fateful destination against their will. Apart from responding to quiet greetings from acquaintances, they mostly remained silent or slept during the twenty minute's journey.
In a short while, the darkness outside and the silence in the bus created a repressive atmosphere which engulfed the reticent human cargo travelling north. Fifteen minutes or so later, as the Ford Leyland droned towards its destination, a dark stocky bespectacled man who introduced himself as Willy Notter (he pronounced it Nutter) appeared from nowhere with a paper in his hand. He read what he said were the Agency and factory regulations which had to be strictly followed.
'If you f......g can't follow this simple rules', he said, cursing profusely, 'then you better catch the next f......g bus back to Dale.'
'The Agency cannot cover for your big-headed stubbornness', he went on, 'and we pay you for obeying the rules and doing a good job.'
He went on to welcome all new comers to the factory, and wished them a rewarding Christmas work. He suggested that if anyone wanted to continue working till mid-night they could see him immediately as there were few places to fill. When the bus came to a stop next to Minster Coleslaw factory Willy Nutter led the group in a single file to the factory changing room. Here a factory orderly was standing sombrely, in all whites, like a surgeon waiting to perform a difficult operation. Absurd as the comparison was, his duty of directing workers to different sections of the Coleslaw factory was a much loathsome job. Even though all sections of the factory were equally detested, he was still seen as the executor of workers misery. Like a doctor conveying bad news to the next of kin, he the bore brunt of the workers' hatred.
In the meantime, perhaps to fill in the time or for the benefit of the orderly, Willy proceeded to instruct the newcomers what size of Wellington boots or overcoats to wear. Satisfied that he had done his bit, he laughed uproariously and wished them a good day as he headed for the bus.
Even though Mawazo had gone through this drill numerous times before, it appeared like a dream to him. The agency supervisor's strong language, the cold weather and the bizarre hour of starting work all combined to make his experience surreal. On the other hand, the mute-like deportment of the workers, most of who were foreigners reminded him of his history teacher telling their class of a people who were shipped in chains across the seas to work for their masters in far lands. In his lifetime Mawazo had done odds and bits of work. His claims that the work he once did in a morgue could never compare to the chilly atmosphere at Minster factory was as unbelievable as it was chilling.
True the temperatures at Minster Coleslaw were deliberately kept far much below freezing point, even in winter. For some strange reasons the supervisors' ill-tempers added to the misery of the weather. Mawazo thought that the management either intentionally employed foul-mouthed temperamental supervisors or the cold rooms changed their behaviour.
This morning as these thoughts went through Mawazo's mind, he could not help wondering how unreasonable life could be. He thought about the favourable climate at home, amidst the backdrop of short supply of well-paying work. Working in a cold room for eight hours would not be such a punishing ordeal in Abantonea, he thought. He could even do the extra shift if it was as well-paying as it was here. But life was not a straight line.
He grabbed the nearest large white coat and slid his feet into size nine wellington boots. Just as he was trying to evade the gaze of the factory orderly, he heard him say:
'Hey you! Yes, Mawazo. You are in the mixing room today', he stressed gleefully as if paying back a wrong-doing. Knowing that the man's word was final, Mawazo entered the washroom to wash his hands, in readiness for the frozen conditions of the mixing room. He steeled his mind and body for the next eight hour ordeal by visualising the sunny weather in Salmina.
Quietly whistling the tune madh mari kata tin (have your own drink however little) he put his heart and soul on mixing mashed potatoes, cabbages and milk, looking forward to another dawn shift.
Monday, May 4, 2009
The scheme
Fukara Alim dragged his feet with false confidence as he walked along the corridor of the second floor balcony of Hekima Academy’s tuition block. He had a double lesson in Form 1 East class and he tried to summon all his attention to the task ahead of him.However, confused thoughts bombarded his mind at will: Tajiri his landlord was coming this evening for his rent, heaps of unmarked books lay on his desk, and there was a staff-meeting scheduled for this mid-morning.... ouch he nearly head-butted Jemo Audi the Chemistry teacher, who was rushing out for another class next door.
‘Morning class’, he hoarsely greeted the class as he entered in.
‘Good morning Sir.’ chorused the young eager faces of the Form 1 E.
‘Now, who can tell us where we had stopped last time?’ Fukara asked the perplexed group of fourteen year olds.
Meanwhile he flicked through the worn-out pages of his copy of Integrated English Book 1. He knew he was guilty of having not looked at any book since last Friday afternoon, but had instead been on a bender till last night. On his way to this class, he had glimpsed through the staff-room window, three heaps of exercise books on his desk awaiting his attention. Good practice required that he marked the last exercise before embarking on any new topic, but what could he do?
He had reached a point in his career where all interest in his work had reached rock bottom. He neither read much, nor tried to search for any new techniques to motivate his pupils. Indeed they respected him because of the good reputation he had built over the years. However, his Head of department always complained about the delay with his schemes of work, and even when they came, they did not reflect any achievable objectives.
Now as he flicked through the class textbook, his mind was in turmoil and his confidence at its lowest. He yearned to be alone, locked in his room and lying down on his bed for the rest of the day. His hands shook as his fingers reached chapter eight where several familiar passages and topics flashed by; African myths of creation, phrasal verbs, noun phrases, vocabulary ...... we must have done all these. Oh God I need help, he thought. These children must not realise what I’m going through.
‘Sir, you asked us to read the passage Anjiko Joins a New School in chapter nine, which we did and answered all the questions. Our books are on your desk in the staffroom’, calmly offered Florida, the class prefect.
That’s my girl, thought Fukara with relief as he quickly reached the page. He had to do something desperately quickly to occupy this class in the double lesson period which lasted an hour and twenty minutes. He wrote words and phrases used in the passage on the black wall. He went through with them each vocabulary, phrase and expression as they were used in the passage. They inferred their meanings from the passage and compared them with actual meanings in the dictionary.
Experience had taught him that younger pupils who had just joined High School were highly motivated, and enjoyed interactive language learning. Many, particularly the extroverts, aspired to show off their knowledge of new words and phrases in their second language. A lively discussion proceeded which covered an entire forty minutes of the first lesson.
However, he couldn’t tell whether they could see through his bluff or not. He thought he heard suppressed giggles from the class at his confusion at the beginning of the lesson. And something in the eyes of Florida alerted him that she could see through him. It was as though she felt very sorry for him. It reminded him of his eight year old daughter Rachel. In his moments of doubt and confusion, Rachel would offer to take off his shoes, polish them and offer him a cup of coffee. During such moments, Rachel was like his mother, and he was a small boy again. Today, his mind was elsewhere as he went through the motions of teaching, like a zombie. He secretly yearned for the lesson to end.
When the bell rang to end the first half of the lesson, he asked them to read the next passage as he hurried to the staff-room to complete marking their books. Hardly had he gone through a couple of exercise books when Buri, the Form three North class prefect brought another heap of books. He slapped them carelessly on the big table in the middle of the staffroom, and without a word turned to walk out.
In Fukara’s depressed mind, he felt as though the whole world had hatched a plan to destroy him professionally. At the corner of the staffroom, he sat with shoulders hunched behind his desk like someone who had been defeated in a fight.
‘Hey Buri, whose books are those?’ Mteja the Kiswahili master asked Buri when Fukara said nothing.
‘They are so-forth’s, sorry... I....err meant to say Mr. Alim’s Sir’, stammered Buri, letting slip Fukara’s nick-name.
‘Come here Buri’, Mteja commanded. Bury walked timidly towards Mr. Mteja’s desk fearing the worst. As he approached Mteja, he was mortified to see Alim calmly seated behind his desk, laboriously poring over a sentence in a book as if he hadn’t noticed him. He went on with his business, as Mteja, now enjoying himself to the fullest, seized the Buri’s unguarded moment to torment him.
‘Buri’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Who is so-forth?’ the evil smirk on Mteja’s face left no doubt in Buri’s mind that he was in deep trouble. It always amazed him how this man never tired of causing trouble for pupils. Pupils knew they were in hot soup if Mteja caught them breaking a rule. It never mattered whether the culprit committed the offence inadvertently or if it was premeditated. This was particularly sticky for Buri because the so-called felony was committed in the staff-room which Mteja claimed was within his area of jurisdiction.
As the Master in charge of the staffroom, he reined terror on all pupils to the chagrin of teachers like Fukara. But today, Fukara felt a kind of satisfaction, some sort of poetic justice being done on the bloke-headed Buri. He ignored the pleading look on Buri’s face as Mteja interrogated him further. Mteja was a short slight man, hardly four feet three inches, and was the same height with some of the boys in forth form. In fact Clara, the deputy head-teacher was recently overheard saying that he instilled fear in pupils to safeguard himself from any potential threat from them.
Fukara somewhat felt that Buri had paid enough for his sins, and decided to intervene. He ignored Mteja’s line of interrogation but proceeded to pin him down on account of bringing the books at the wrong time.
‘Buri when were you supposed to bring these books?’ he asked feigning annoyance.
‘Last Friday, Sir.’
‘Well, Buri you’ll have to explain to Form three North that the books will be marked first before I can come to your class’, he said lamely.
‘I will Sir, but you still owe us two lessons. Last Friday’s doubles went untaught’, he cheekily retorted. Before Fukara could think of what to say, the bell rang for morning break, and Buri dashed out of the staffroom. There was heavy movement of chairs and desks as pupils rushed out of their classrooms, and teachers streamed into the staffroom. Across the staffroom from where he sat, Mteja felt disappointed with Fukara for letting Buri off the hook so easily. Buri will have to answer for his arrogance next time, he thought.
‘Excuse me teachers’, suddenly announced Mr. Busara, ‘Due to unforeseen circumstances, our staff meeting scheduled for this morning has been postponed to next Friday.’
Fukara hadn’t noticed the head-teacher coming into the staffroom. Deep down in his heart there was a sigh of relief. He was neither in the mood nor in a mental state for any meeting. But when the head-teacher asked him to come to the office immediately, his heart skipped a beat. Perhaps it was the way he said it, or it was just his own premonition that warned Fukara that the summons to Mr. Busara’s office was about a complaint about his work.
As he walked down the stairways to the ground floor, he thought of all the possible shortcomings in his work of late. He could only think of the heaps of unmarked books in the staffroom. His mind was clouded, and he felt thirsty and dizzy, but there was no time to waste. So he walked up to the head-teacher’s door and knocked gently.
‘Come in’, came Mr. Busara’s booming voice from inside.
He was surprised to see Mrs Binafsi, Florida’s mother, seated on the visitor’s chair inside the office. Noticing his discomfiture, Mr. Busara quickly hastened to explain.
‘Take a seat Mr. Alim’, he said cheerily without any trace of pretence, ‘You know Mrs. Binafsi who is a parent as well as the chair-person of the Parents Teachers Association.’
He explained that she was there on routine BOG business but thought she needed to talk about her daughter’s performance in school.
‘I’ve noticed in particular that her English exercise book has been marked only twice this term’, she chipped in matter-of-factly even before the head-teacher could finish, ‘Some of the exercises are marked with a pencil which she said was done by a classmate. I wanted to know the truth by myself.’
Caught off guard, Fukara tried to explain as convincingly as he could, why there were few teachers’ marks on Florida’s exercise book. He did not know whether his reason for asking the pupils to mark their classmate’s books was convincing enough. He broke into a sweat when Mr. Busara commented that he had noticed the work he had covered did not tally with his schemes of work. Did he have an explanation for that? He did not seem to have an immediate answer. The head-teacher, however, assured Mrs. Binafsi that Fukara was one of the most experienced teachers in Hekima Academy, and that any oversight will be ironed out.
Fukara walked out of the school office in a daze. He thought about his twenty odd years of teaching English language, and wondered whether there was any tangible achievement he could show for it. He felt small and cornered like ant in a square room full of spiders. As he walked into the staffroom, he could sense all eyes probing his face but ignored them as he sat down heavily on his chair. He felt tension building in the staffroom as nobody was saying anything to him. It was as if they had known all along, and had been waiting for this to happen.
The leeches, traitors, he angrily thought to himself. For the umpteenth time, he told himself that he would tender in his resignation, and concentrate on his own private business where he was his own boss. As he tried to calm himself, his mind went back to the good old days, when a teacher’s word was his bond. Motivated by a desire to impart knowledge, and an in-built self-regulation, he worked at his pace and required no interference from ‘stake-holders’ as happened these days.
As far as he saw it, a modern teacher’s career expectancy is short-lived, if not doomed.
The glare of probing eyes from the head-teachers, the parents, government and the public can break any iron-hearted individual. The last straw is the empowerment of the pupils, to do and to say as they will. It is an inadvertent scheme to bring down, and to destroy one of the noblest professions in the world.
‘Morning class’, he hoarsely greeted the class as he entered in.
‘Good morning Sir.’ chorused the young eager faces of the Form 1 E.
‘Now, who can tell us where we had stopped last time?’ Fukara asked the perplexed group of fourteen year olds.
Meanwhile he flicked through the worn-out pages of his copy of Integrated English Book 1. He knew he was guilty of having not looked at any book since last Friday afternoon, but had instead been on a bender till last night. On his way to this class, he had glimpsed through the staff-room window, three heaps of exercise books on his desk awaiting his attention. Good practice required that he marked the last exercise before embarking on any new topic, but what could he do?
He had reached a point in his career where all interest in his work had reached rock bottom. He neither read much, nor tried to search for any new techniques to motivate his pupils. Indeed they respected him because of the good reputation he had built over the years. However, his Head of department always complained about the delay with his schemes of work, and even when they came, they did not reflect any achievable objectives.
Now as he flicked through the class textbook, his mind was in turmoil and his confidence at its lowest. He yearned to be alone, locked in his room and lying down on his bed for the rest of the day. His hands shook as his fingers reached chapter eight where several familiar passages and topics flashed by; African myths of creation, phrasal verbs, noun phrases, vocabulary ...... we must have done all these. Oh God I need help, he thought. These children must not realise what I’m going through.
‘Sir, you asked us to read the passage Anjiko Joins a New School in chapter nine, which we did and answered all the questions. Our books are on your desk in the staffroom’, calmly offered Florida, the class prefect.
That’s my girl, thought Fukara with relief as he quickly reached the page. He had to do something desperately quickly to occupy this class in the double lesson period which lasted an hour and twenty minutes. He wrote words and phrases used in the passage on the black wall. He went through with them each vocabulary, phrase and expression as they were used in the passage. They inferred their meanings from the passage and compared them with actual meanings in the dictionary.
Experience had taught him that younger pupils who had just joined High School were highly motivated, and enjoyed interactive language learning. Many, particularly the extroverts, aspired to show off their knowledge of new words and phrases in their second language. A lively discussion proceeded which covered an entire forty minutes of the first lesson.
However, he couldn’t tell whether they could see through his bluff or not. He thought he heard suppressed giggles from the class at his confusion at the beginning of the lesson. And something in the eyes of Florida alerted him that she could see through him. It was as though she felt very sorry for him. It reminded him of his eight year old daughter Rachel. In his moments of doubt and confusion, Rachel would offer to take off his shoes, polish them and offer him a cup of coffee. During such moments, Rachel was like his mother, and he was a small boy again. Today, his mind was elsewhere as he went through the motions of teaching, like a zombie. He secretly yearned for the lesson to end.
When the bell rang to end the first half of the lesson, he asked them to read the next passage as he hurried to the staff-room to complete marking their books. Hardly had he gone through a couple of exercise books when Buri, the Form three North class prefect brought another heap of books. He slapped them carelessly on the big table in the middle of the staffroom, and without a word turned to walk out.
In Fukara’s depressed mind, he felt as though the whole world had hatched a plan to destroy him professionally. At the corner of the staffroom, he sat with shoulders hunched behind his desk like someone who had been defeated in a fight.
‘Hey Buri, whose books are those?’ Mteja the Kiswahili master asked Buri when Fukara said nothing.
‘They are so-forth’s, sorry... I....err meant to say Mr. Alim’s Sir’, stammered Buri, letting slip Fukara’s nick-name.
‘Come here Buri’, Mteja commanded. Bury walked timidly towards Mr. Mteja’s desk fearing the worst. As he approached Mteja, he was mortified to see Alim calmly seated behind his desk, laboriously poring over a sentence in a book as if he hadn’t noticed him. He went on with his business, as Mteja, now enjoying himself to the fullest, seized the Buri’s unguarded moment to torment him.
‘Buri’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Who is so-forth?’ the evil smirk on Mteja’s face left no doubt in Buri’s mind that he was in deep trouble. It always amazed him how this man never tired of causing trouble for pupils. Pupils knew they were in hot soup if Mteja caught them breaking a rule. It never mattered whether the culprit committed the offence inadvertently or if it was premeditated. This was particularly sticky for Buri because the so-called felony was committed in the staff-room which Mteja claimed was within his area of jurisdiction.
As the Master in charge of the staffroom, he reined terror on all pupils to the chagrin of teachers like Fukara. But today, Fukara felt a kind of satisfaction, some sort of poetic justice being done on the bloke-headed Buri. He ignored the pleading look on Buri’s face as Mteja interrogated him further. Mteja was a short slight man, hardly four feet three inches, and was the same height with some of the boys in forth form. In fact Clara, the deputy head-teacher was recently overheard saying that he instilled fear in pupils to safeguard himself from any potential threat from them.
Fukara somewhat felt that Buri had paid enough for his sins, and decided to intervene. He ignored Mteja’s line of interrogation but proceeded to pin him down on account of bringing the books at the wrong time.
‘Buri when were you supposed to bring these books?’ he asked feigning annoyance.
‘Last Friday, Sir.’
‘Well, Buri you’ll have to explain to Form three North that the books will be marked first before I can come to your class’, he said lamely.
‘I will Sir, but you still owe us two lessons. Last Friday’s doubles went untaught’, he cheekily retorted. Before Fukara could think of what to say, the bell rang for morning break, and Buri dashed out of the staffroom. There was heavy movement of chairs and desks as pupils rushed out of their classrooms, and teachers streamed into the staffroom. Across the staffroom from where he sat, Mteja felt disappointed with Fukara for letting Buri off the hook so easily. Buri will have to answer for his arrogance next time, he thought.
‘Excuse me teachers’, suddenly announced Mr. Busara, ‘Due to unforeseen circumstances, our staff meeting scheduled for this morning has been postponed to next Friday.’
Fukara hadn’t noticed the head-teacher coming into the staffroom. Deep down in his heart there was a sigh of relief. He was neither in the mood nor in a mental state for any meeting. But when the head-teacher asked him to come to the office immediately, his heart skipped a beat. Perhaps it was the way he said it, or it was just his own premonition that warned Fukara that the summons to Mr. Busara’s office was about a complaint about his work.
As he walked down the stairways to the ground floor, he thought of all the possible shortcomings in his work of late. He could only think of the heaps of unmarked books in the staffroom. His mind was clouded, and he felt thirsty and dizzy, but there was no time to waste. So he walked up to the head-teacher’s door and knocked gently.
‘Come in’, came Mr. Busara’s booming voice from inside.
He was surprised to see Mrs Binafsi, Florida’s mother, seated on the visitor’s chair inside the office. Noticing his discomfiture, Mr. Busara quickly hastened to explain.
‘Take a seat Mr. Alim’, he said cheerily without any trace of pretence, ‘You know Mrs. Binafsi who is a parent as well as the chair-person of the Parents Teachers Association.’
He explained that she was there on routine BOG business but thought she needed to talk about her daughter’s performance in school.
‘I’ve noticed in particular that her English exercise book has been marked only twice this term’, she chipped in matter-of-factly even before the head-teacher could finish, ‘Some of the exercises are marked with a pencil which she said was done by a classmate. I wanted to know the truth by myself.’
Caught off guard, Fukara tried to explain as convincingly as he could, why there were few teachers’ marks on Florida’s exercise book. He did not know whether his reason for asking the pupils to mark their classmate’s books was convincing enough. He broke into a sweat when Mr. Busara commented that he had noticed the work he had covered did not tally with his schemes of work. Did he have an explanation for that? He did not seem to have an immediate answer. The head-teacher, however, assured Mrs. Binafsi that Fukara was one of the most experienced teachers in Hekima Academy, and that any oversight will be ironed out.
Fukara walked out of the school office in a daze. He thought about his twenty odd years of teaching English language, and wondered whether there was any tangible achievement he could show for it. He felt small and cornered like ant in a square room full of spiders. As he walked into the staffroom, he could sense all eyes probing his face but ignored them as he sat down heavily on his chair. He felt tension building in the staffroom as nobody was saying anything to him. It was as if they had known all along, and had been waiting for this to happen.
The leeches, traitors, he angrily thought to himself. For the umpteenth time, he told himself that he would tender in his resignation, and concentrate on his own private business where he was his own boss. As he tried to calm himself, his mind went back to the good old days, when a teacher’s word was his bond. Motivated by a desire to impart knowledge, and an in-built self-regulation, he worked at his pace and required no interference from ‘stake-holders’ as happened these days.
As far as he saw it, a modern teacher’s career expectancy is short-lived, if not doomed.
The glare of probing eyes from the head-teachers, the parents, government and the public can break any iron-hearted individual. The last straw is the empowerment of the pupils, to do and to say as they will. It is an inadvertent scheme to bring down, and to destroy one of the noblest professions in the world.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Why should the world care about the environment in places like Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Rwanda?
If there are any reasons why the world should care about the environmental issues in Africa, two immediate reasons come to mind: geopolitics and the concept of a global village. There are as many other reasons why any sane person should run as far away from the continent as posible. Even though Africa has great potential and resources, her endless woes and the buffoonery of her leaders, are an enduring night-mare that causes sleeplessness to the rest of the world.
However, people in Europe, Asia, America and the rest of the world are still drawn to Africa because it is almost impossible to shut the continent out from the rest of the world.
Africa's link with the rest of the world began with the scramble for her, where Great Britain, France, Portugal and Germany to mention a few, acquired colonies in Africa. Following independence from the colonial governments, political instability and internal conflicts have left an endless litany of human and environmental degradation in the continent.
In the case of Mozambique, Rwanda and Zimbabwe, the world's attention has been caught by the threat to their unique fauna and flora.
In some of the African conflicts, (like the liberation war in Mozambique) vested interests ensured that support (military and otherwise) continued to flow in from the former rulers.
For this, and other historical links, it has been difficult for the world, particularly the western world to turn a blind eye to what is going on in these countries.
On the other hand, the natural environment knows no boundaries. For instance, the well known annual migration of wildebeests in the Maasai-Mara and Serengeti National parks is a cross-border affair between Kenya and Tanzania. If there is disease outbreak among these animals or their environment is affected, it would not just be Kenyan or Tanzanian, but a regional problem.
This illustrates the fact that an environmental issue in one part of the world can take a global dimension, depending on its magnitude.
That said, the world has become a small village. Technological advancement in media reporting has ensured that the effects of the floods in Mozambique, the degradation of Gishwati forest in Rwanda, and malpractices in the Zimbabwean national parks are flashed in our living room television screens.
It therefore follows that a civilized world (knowing the importance of ecosystems), would use all resources at its disposal to restore any environmental degradation before it worsens. Furthermore,environmental issues linked to internal conflicts tend to have a spiral effect on neighboring countries.
In 1994, for example, one million Tutsis fled into neighboring Congo. Most of these refugees who did not have food, and shelter turned to the natural habitat for food and materials for building their homes. In effect the natural environment in Congo was now supporting a bigger population than it did before.
The net result was that both the political and environmental repercussions of war had now sucked in Congo, Uganda and all the international communities with vested interests there.
ln the Gishwati forests of Rwanda, the thick African mahogany, and the strangler figs were chopped down, to create room for potato and maize fields. The end result has been eroded terraces, and landslides that have killed people. Lake Kivu, on the Rwanda-Congo border now carries excess nutrients that pollutes rivers and affects the fishing industry.
War, conflict and political instability destroy even well-established economic institutions. In Zimbabwe, deforestation, poaching and unsustainable resource exploitation is destroying what was once among the best managed National park systems in the world.
Around Victoria Falls and Hwange National park, poaching for subsistence and for commercial purposes is on the rise. Since poaching is a high stakes activity, use of sophisticated weapons means that visitors, for fear of their safety, would avoid this part of Africa.
What this translates into is that an important foreign exchange earner has been brought to its knees. This exposes Zimbabwe to lending institutions like the World Bank, and IMF as an irresponsible regime which has failed to protect a sustainable natural resource.
In the case of Mozambique, the twelve year conflict resulted to massive destruction of the natural resource base. Wildlife was hunted both for meat and trophy by FRELIMO and RENAMO. That meant that the natural habitat in Gorongosa National park and the Zambezi delta were not self-sustaining. With destruction to infrastructure, the tourist industry had virtually come to a standstill. The natural environment could not sustain itself, threatening the very livelihood of subsistence farmers.
When hunger threatens a people, their natural recourse has always been to migrate to the neighboring countries who often cannot cope with the sudden influx of a large population; this was the case with Mozambicans who spilled into most of the southern African countries.
Massive resources have had to be mobilized to help not only in reconstruction, as was the case in Mozambique, but also in conservation of threatened species of wildlife like the rhino in Zimbabwe.
These, and many others, underscore the need for the world to care about the environment in Mozambique, Rwanda and Zimbabwe.
Bibliography:
www.crisisgroup.org
www.worldlife.org/bsp/publicat ions/africa/146/mozambique.pdf
www.und.ac.za/und/indic/archiv es/crime/issue10/conserv.html
However, people in Europe, Asia, America and the rest of the world are still drawn to Africa because it is almost impossible to shut the continent out from the rest of the world.
Africa's link with the rest of the world began with the scramble for her, where Great Britain, France, Portugal and Germany to mention a few, acquired colonies in Africa. Following independence from the colonial governments, political instability and internal conflicts have left an endless litany of human and environmental degradation in the continent.
In the case of Mozambique, Rwanda and Zimbabwe, the world's attention has been caught by the threat to their unique fauna and flora.
In some of the African conflicts, (like the liberation war in Mozambique) vested interests ensured that support (military and otherwise) continued to flow in from the former rulers.
For this, and other historical links, it has been difficult for the world, particularly the western world to turn a blind eye to what is going on in these countries.
On the other hand, the natural environment knows no boundaries. For instance, the well known annual migration of wildebeests in the Maasai-Mara and Serengeti National parks is a cross-border affair between Kenya and Tanzania. If there is disease outbreak among these animals or their environment is affected, it would not just be Kenyan or Tanzanian, but a regional problem.
This illustrates the fact that an environmental issue in one part of the world can take a global dimension, depending on its magnitude.
That said, the world has become a small village. Technological advancement in media reporting has ensured that the effects of the floods in Mozambique, the degradation of Gishwati forest in Rwanda, and malpractices in the Zimbabwean national parks are flashed in our living room television screens.
It therefore follows that a civilized world (knowing the importance of ecosystems), would use all resources at its disposal to restore any environmental degradation before it worsens. Furthermore,environmental issues linked to internal conflicts tend to have a spiral effect on neighboring countries.
In 1994, for example, one million Tutsis fled into neighboring Congo. Most of these refugees who did not have food, and shelter turned to the natural habitat for food and materials for building their homes. In effect the natural environment in Congo was now supporting a bigger population than it did before.
The net result was that both the political and environmental repercussions of war had now sucked in Congo, Uganda and all the international communities with vested interests there.
ln the Gishwati forests of Rwanda, the thick African mahogany, and the strangler figs were chopped down, to create room for potato and maize fields. The end result has been eroded terraces, and landslides that have killed people. Lake Kivu, on the Rwanda-Congo border now carries excess nutrients that pollutes rivers and affects the fishing industry.
War, conflict and political instability destroy even well-established economic institutions. In Zimbabwe, deforestation, poaching and unsustainable resource exploitation is destroying what was once among the best managed National park systems in the world.
Around Victoria Falls and Hwange National park, poaching for subsistence and for commercial purposes is on the rise. Since poaching is a high stakes activity, use of sophisticated weapons means that visitors, for fear of their safety, would avoid this part of Africa.
What this translates into is that an important foreign exchange earner has been brought to its knees. This exposes Zimbabwe to lending institutions like the World Bank, and IMF as an irresponsible regime which has failed to protect a sustainable natural resource.
In the case of Mozambique, the twelve year conflict resulted to massive destruction of the natural resource base. Wildlife was hunted both for meat and trophy by FRELIMO and RENAMO. That meant that the natural habitat in Gorongosa National park and the Zambezi delta were not self-sustaining. With destruction to infrastructure, the tourist industry had virtually come to a standstill. The natural environment could not sustain itself, threatening the very livelihood of subsistence farmers.
When hunger threatens a people, their natural recourse has always been to migrate to the neighboring countries who often cannot cope with the sudden influx of a large population; this was the case with Mozambicans who spilled into most of the southern African countries.
Massive resources have had to be mobilized to help not only in reconstruction, as was the case in Mozambique, but also in conservation of threatened species of wildlife like the rhino in Zimbabwe.
These, and many others, underscore the need for the world to care about the environment in Mozambique, Rwanda and Zimbabwe.
Bibliography:
www.crisisgroup.org
www.worldlife.org/bsp/publicat ions/africa/146/mozambique.pdf
www.und.ac.za/und/indic/archiv es/crime/issue10/conserv.html
The Hare and the Ogre
Along time ago, Hare also known as Apuoyo, was a great friend of Apul Apul (Ogre). Both wanted to marry but were in love with the same girl. Because of his cunning, Apuoyo managed to sweep the girl off her feet, and so Apul had to marry another girl. After a while, both of them got children but Apuoyo’s girls were prettier than Apul’s.
Apul was very unhappy about this, and their friendship came to a sudden end. During this time there was a great famine in the land. Every morning Apuoyo would leave the house to look for food many miles away. He instructed his daughters never to open the door for anyone else except when they heard him singing a particular song. Because of the rivalry between them, Apul Apul had vowed to eat Apuoyo’s children.
So as soon as Apuoyo left the house, Apul went to his house and sang in a hoarse voice hoping that Apuoyo’s daughters would let him in. But they could not be fooled as every toddler in that county knew Apul’s voice a mile away. As he was determined to fulfil this desire, he went to consult a medicine man on how to make his voice mellower. He was advised to eat crickets which would soften his voice.
However, Apul failed to find a cricket and instead ate a frog. This made his voice even hoarser, and when he tried to sing Apuoyo’s children called out mockingly at him.
He decided to consult another medicine man who also advised him to eat a cricket to soften his vocal chords. This time round, he was lucky to catch a cricket which he quickly swallowed, making his voice sounding like Apuoyo’s. He quickly dashed off to Apuoyo’s house and began to sing. In spite of this, Apuoyo’s younger daughter was still suspicious and dissuaded her elder sister from opening the door. The elder sister nevertheless opened the door, and Apul immediately swallowed her. The younger sister was lucky to escape before Apul could catch her.
When Apuoyo returned from his journey, he was horrified to find the door fastened from outside. He quickly unfastened it and began to sing:
Where have my children gone?
My two children.
When his youngest daughter heard him singing, she quickly emerged from the water pot where she had hidden. She narrated to him what had happened, and Apuoyo was too stunned to speak. Luckily for him, on that day the elders had called a meeting at the riverside to discuss how to make rain, for the drought had caused a great famine in the land. He decided to attend the meeting, which had begun a while ago.
Some drinking had been going on, and there was banter about singing in turns as a form of entertainment. King Lion (Sibuor) insisted on singing before everyone else, but his voice was so off-key that he was politely persuaded to stop. Then Apuoyo offered to sing. Apul and his friends protested but Sibuor ruled that he be given chance to sing. He took a drum and sang thus in tune with the drum beat:
Ati-ti-ti nyambla diang’a
See the homestead exuding smoke.
Ati-ti-ti nyambla diang’a
See the homestead exuding smoke.
This song so amused the animals that they all danced gleefully as the drink began to take control of them. Apuoyo soon slipped from the meeting and headed for Apul’s home. He set it on fire with Apul’s children trapped inside. He then ran back to the ceremony which was now approaching its climax.
When everybody noticed he was back they persuaded him to sing his entertaining song again. This he did with gusto, again and again. Apul soon began to smell a rat; how could Apuoyo enjoy singing such banality? He quickly ran to a raised ground above the riverside and looked in the direction of his homestead. He was shocked to see a huge smoke and fire razing his homestead. The meaning of Apuoyo’s song hit him hard.
His immediate reaction was to confront Apuoyo at the ceremony, but his nemesis had vanished as soon as he realized that Apul had discovered his deed. He kept running and hiding the whole day as Apul mounted a sustained man-hunt for him. Much later when it was very dark, Apul sat down to rest and to mull over the recent happenings in their county. Unbeknown to him, Apuoyo had been sitting on a rock a few yards away from him.
At the crack of dawn, Apuoyo was the first to realise that he had been sleeping near his sworn enemy and quietly began to creep away. Unfortunately he stepped on a dry twig which snapped noisily and woke up Apul. Apul was both taken aback, and glad that his enemy was in close proximity. The chase now took the direction of the village. Soon Apul met Sibuor and Kwach (Leopard) who asked about his business on the plain so early in the morning. He narrated to them his side of the story.
Sibour promised to convene a court session to arbitrate between the two. On the day of arbitration Apuoyo arrived early with his daughter as witness to the genesis of this conflict. Mwanda the Antelope, was then dispatched to summon Apul, and on their way to court advised him to demand part of Apuoyo’s daughter’s bride-price as compensation for his loss.
Deliberation on this conflict lasted a whole day. In the end both parties were found guilty of one felony or another, although Apul had incurred the greater loss. When asked to demand compensation, he asked for what Mwanda had advised, to which Apuoyo agreed.
But when Apuoyo’s daughter had grown old enough to be married, the family migrated secretly to live somewhere else. Apul Apul could not trace their whereabouts, and was left to rue his actions that had led to his current predicament.
Apul was very unhappy about this, and their friendship came to a sudden end. During this time there was a great famine in the land. Every morning Apuoyo would leave the house to look for food many miles away. He instructed his daughters never to open the door for anyone else except when they heard him singing a particular song. Because of the rivalry between them, Apul Apul had vowed to eat Apuoyo’s children.
So as soon as Apuoyo left the house, Apul went to his house and sang in a hoarse voice hoping that Apuoyo’s daughters would let him in. But they could not be fooled as every toddler in that county knew Apul’s voice a mile away. As he was determined to fulfil this desire, he went to consult a medicine man on how to make his voice mellower. He was advised to eat crickets which would soften his voice.
However, Apul failed to find a cricket and instead ate a frog. This made his voice even hoarser, and when he tried to sing Apuoyo’s children called out mockingly at him.
He decided to consult another medicine man who also advised him to eat a cricket to soften his vocal chords. This time round, he was lucky to catch a cricket which he quickly swallowed, making his voice sounding like Apuoyo’s. He quickly dashed off to Apuoyo’s house and began to sing. In spite of this, Apuoyo’s younger daughter was still suspicious and dissuaded her elder sister from opening the door. The elder sister nevertheless opened the door, and Apul immediately swallowed her. The younger sister was lucky to escape before Apul could catch her.
When Apuoyo returned from his journey, he was horrified to find the door fastened from outside. He quickly unfastened it and began to sing:
Where have my children gone?
My two children.
When his youngest daughter heard him singing, she quickly emerged from the water pot where she had hidden. She narrated to him what had happened, and Apuoyo was too stunned to speak. Luckily for him, on that day the elders had called a meeting at the riverside to discuss how to make rain, for the drought had caused a great famine in the land. He decided to attend the meeting, which had begun a while ago.
Some drinking had been going on, and there was banter about singing in turns as a form of entertainment. King Lion (Sibuor) insisted on singing before everyone else, but his voice was so off-key that he was politely persuaded to stop. Then Apuoyo offered to sing. Apul and his friends protested but Sibuor ruled that he be given chance to sing. He took a drum and sang thus in tune with the drum beat:
Ati-ti-ti nyambla diang’a
See the homestead exuding smoke.
Ati-ti-ti nyambla diang’a
See the homestead exuding smoke.
This song so amused the animals that they all danced gleefully as the drink began to take control of them. Apuoyo soon slipped from the meeting and headed for Apul’s home. He set it on fire with Apul’s children trapped inside. He then ran back to the ceremony which was now approaching its climax.
When everybody noticed he was back they persuaded him to sing his entertaining song again. This he did with gusto, again and again. Apul soon began to smell a rat; how could Apuoyo enjoy singing such banality? He quickly ran to a raised ground above the riverside and looked in the direction of his homestead. He was shocked to see a huge smoke and fire razing his homestead. The meaning of Apuoyo’s song hit him hard.
His immediate reaction was to confront Apuoyo at the ceremony, but his nemesis had vanished as soon as he realized that Apul had discovered his deed. He kept running and hiding the whole day as Apul mounted a sustained man-hunt for him. Much later when it was very dark, Apul sat down to rest and to mull over the recent happenings in their county. Unbeknown to him, Apuoyo had been sitting on a rock a few yards away from him.
At the crack of dawn, Apuoyo was the first to realise that he had been sleeping near his sworn enemy and quietly began to creep away. Unfortunately he stepped on a dry twig which snapped noisily and woke up Apul. Apul was both taken aback, and glad that his enemy was in close proximity. The chase now took the direction of the village. Soon Apul met Sibuor and Kwach (Leopard) who asked about his business on the plain so early in the morning. He narrated to them his side of the story.
Sibour promised to convene a court session to arbitrate between the two. On the day of arbitration Apuoyo arrived early with his daughter as witness to the genesis of this conflict. Mwanda the Antelope, was then dispatched to summon Apul, and on their way to court advised him to demand part of Apuoyo’s daughter’s bride-price as compensation for his loss.
Deliberation on this conflict lasted a whole day. In the end both parties were found guilty of one felony or another, although Apul had incurred the greater loss. When asked to demand compensation, he asked for what Mwanda had advised, to which Apuoyo agreed.
But when Apuoyo’s daughter had grown old enough to be married, the family migrated secretly to live somewhere else. Apul Apul could not trace their whereabouts, and was left to rue his actions that had led to his current predicament.
Should schools require more rigorous testing of students to determine literacy levels?
I think it is the structure, rather than the message, in the statement above which raises the alarm signals in the minds of stake-holders of our schools. Perhaps if the comparative 'more' were omitted it would be less intimidating to the ears of anti-testing crusaders. But even without it, I can still visualise them up in arms and yelling that their children are being turned into testing zombies.
The most detestable word in the statement this time round would be 'rigorous', and they would qualify it by suggesting that rigorous testing, or any formalised examination of their children's learning was unfair, selective, intimidating, inhuman or just plain unsuitable for children.
For starters, I have had to look up the meaning of the word 'rigorous' to determine its suitability in the statement. Out of the four meanings that came up, the first three gave it the negative connotation of strict, harsh, unrelenting, and severe activity. The other meaning which describes it as an extremely standardized, precise and formalized activity, has been intentionally ignored by anti-testing crusaders. In line with this latter definition I wish to discuss the merits of a formal standardized and precise testing.
But first, there is need to explain that tests are not intended as punishment to students or as a selective device to separate, as it were, the chaff from the grain. There are various tests, and depending on their purpose, level and legal requirements of the testing institution, will vary in their rigor. Granted that teachers have at their disposal the ability to make tests less formal, testing has been with us for ages, and will always remain in any learning environment.
Now let us get back to the bone of contention; whether more rigorous testing will help to determine students' literacy levels or not. To begin, we will need to agree that testing is a useful feedback tool for both teachers and learners for gauging learning levels. There are short, medium and long-term tests. Short term feedbacks include verbal answers that students give in class. The next level could be continuous assessment tests, and homework that go hand-in-hand with learning.
But more formalised assessments may be necessary for purposes of placing students to the next level of learning, to show competence at the end of a course, and to also help the teachers to plan for the future. Would they have to revisit what they have already taught or would remedial work be necessary for only a few pupils?
Placement assessment tests can be standardized, formalised and precise without seeming intimidating or giving the impression of being an ordeal. The atmosphere should be formal and strict, to dissuade cheating and unfairness from students who want to get it the easy way.
Without rigorous testing, there would be no clear cut way forward; the teacher should have pass-marks and actual records of marks, to show that learning had taken place. From the records of marks with names of real pupils, s/he will decide which learners will move to the next level of learning. We all know that it is unthinkable for a teacher to make a verbal announcement at the end of the year without any records to show for it, that his class had shown remarkable progress and would be promoted to the next level. The records are not only an important legal requirement for the school, but are necessary for the pupils and their parents who would want to see their children's progress report.
Now that I have, hopefully, made a case for the importance of a precise, formal and standardized testing, the next question would be whether we need more or less of these. We all agree that testing is a useful tool in the learning environment; teachers use them to assess whether learning has taken place. If testing is necessary for determining the levels of learning, then it follows that testing is only necessary as long as learning takes place. Testing on its own cannot determine learning. Thus, more testing in an environment where little or no learning has taken place is like putting the cart before the horse.
My submission, therefore, is that to determine literacy levels, testing should only follow appropriate teaching and learning. It shouldn't be the case that more rigorous testing alone should determine literacy levels.
The most detestable word in the statement this time round would be 'rigorous', and they would qualify it by suggesting that rigorous testing, or any formalised examination of their children's learning was unfair, selective, intimidating, inhuman or just plain unsuitable for children.
For starters, I have had to look up the meaning of the word 'rigorous' to determine its suitability in the statement. Out of the four meanings that came up, the first three gave it the negative connotation of strict, harsh, unrelenting, and severe activity. The other meaning which describes it as an extremely standardized, precise and formalized activity, has been intentionally ignored by anti-testing crusaders. In line with this latter definition I wish to discuss the merits of a formal standardized and precise testing.
But first, there is need to explain that tests are not intended as punishment to students or as a selective device to separate, as it were, the chaff from the grain. There are various tests, and depending on their purpose, level and legal requirements of the testing institution, will vary in their rigor. Granted that teachers have at their disposal the ability to make tests less formal, testing has been with us for ages, and will always remain in any learning environment.
Now let us get back to the bone of contention; whether more rigorous testing will help to determine students' literacy levels or not. To begin, we will need to agree that testing is a useful feedback tool for both teachers and learners for gauging learning levels. There are short, medium and long-term tests. Short term feedbacks include verbal answers that students give in class. The next level could be continuous assessment tests, and homework that go hand-in-hand with learning.
But more formalised assessments may be necessary for purposes of placing students to the next level of learning, to show competence at the end of a course, and to also help the teachers to plan for the future. Would they have to revisit what they have already taught or would remedial work be necessary for only a few pupils?
Placement assessment tests can be standardized, formalised and precise without seeming intimidating or giving the impression of being an ordeal. The atmosphere should be formal and strict, to dissuade cheating and unfairness from students who want to get it the easy way.
Without rigorous testing, there would be no clear cut way forward; the teacher should have pass-marks and actual records of marks, to show that learning had taken place. From the records of marks with names of real pupils, s/he will decide which learners will move to the next level of learning. We all know that it is unthinkable for a teacher to make a verbal announcement at the end of the year without any records to show for it, that his class had shown remarkable progress and would be promoted to the next level. The records are not only an important legal requirement for the school, but are necessary for the pupils and their parents who would want to see their children's progress report.
Now that I have, hopefully, made a case for the importance of a precise, formal and standardized testing, the next question would be whether we need more or less of these. We all agree that testing is a useful tool in the learning environment; teachers use them to assess whether learning has taken place. If testing is necessary for determining the levels of learning, then it follows that testing is only necessary as long as learning takes place. Testing on its own cannot determine learning. Thus, more testing in an environment where little or no learning has taken place is like putting the cart before the horse.
My submission, therefore, is that to determine literacy levels, testing should only follow appropriate teaching and learning. It shouldn't be the case that more rigorous testing alone should determine literacy levels.
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