Sunday, October 10, 2004
Sunday, October 10
My niece, Shari Benites, is a high school teacher in Arlington VA. She and the other teachers in her school got together to send 40 Chemistry Textbooks. What a difference those chemistry textbooks are making! I got them just before I had to attend an HIV/AIDS conference for a week. So I doled them out to the best students in all my classes and put eight in the library, then gave the classes a reading and problem assignment on material we had just covered in class, to do while I was gone. And I told them I would give them a quiz as soon as I returned.
That I actually GAVE them a quiz on my first day back absolutely SHOCKED them. There weren’t enough books. The books were too hard. There hadn’t been enough time. They couldn’t understand the books. They needed an introduction to the material first. Sob, sob, sob – the floor was getting all wet and I had to pull up my pantlegs!
I began reading the assigned section from the book, asking after every sentence “Did you understand that? Was that English too difficult for you?” Of course the sentences were beautifully written, in clear conversational English.
The three to six students in every class that actually had read their books solved all the problems in five minutes, correctly. NONE of the rest had any idea how to even start answering the problems.
Since then, the books are getting heavy use. Students are coming up to me and asking me how to solve problems that I didn’t assign from the books. I love it! And those books present INTERESTING chemistry – pollution, agriculture, waste disposal, energy options - stuff that makes sense to students. What a change from the desiccated elitist Tanzanian syllabus, designed by the British 50 years ago!
Unfortunately, I still have to teach to the Tanzanian syllabus as that is what their all-important National Examinations will require of them. But I can do that by picking and choosing in the textbooks, and the students can explore the other topics on their own.
My niece, Shari Benites, is a high school teacher in Arlington VA. She and the other teachers in her school got together to send 40 Chemistry Textbooks. What a difference those chemistry textbooks are making! I got them just before I had to attend an HIV/AIDS conference for a week. So I doled them out to the best students in all my classes and put eight in the library, then gave the classes a reading and problem assignment on material we had just covered in class, to do while I was gone. And I told them I would give them a quiz as soon as I returned.
That I actually GAVE them a quiz on my first day back absolutely SHOCKED them. There weren’t enough books. The books were too hard. There hadn’t been enough time. They couldn’t understand the books. They needed an introduction to the material first. Sob, sob, sob – the floor was getting all wet and I had to pull up my pantlegs!
I began reading the assigned section from the book, asking after every sentence “Did you understand that? Was that English too difficult for you?” Of course the sentences were beautifully written, in clear conversational English.
The three to six students in every class that actually had read their books solved all the problems in five minutes, correctly. NONE of the rest had any idea how to even start answering the problems.
Since then, the books are getting heavy use. Students are coming up to me and asking me how to solve problems that I didn’t assign from the books. I love it! And those books present INTERESTING chemistry – pollution, agriculture, waste disposal, energy options - stuff that makes sense to students. What a change from the desiccated elitist Tanzanian syllabus, designed by the British 50 years ago!
Unfortunately, I still have to teach to the Tanzanian syllabus as that is what their all-important National Examinations will require of them. But I can do that by picking and choosing in the textbooks, and the students can explore the other topics on their own.
