Two Moments
We’re doing Free Writing journals in Form 2. It was introduced back in April when Jenny was around. She wanted the students to have a space and time to write whatever they wanted, their feelings and thoughts, their hopes and frustrations, perhaps even a space to write some short stories. Now that Jenny is gone, I’m trying to keep the journal writing alive by giving them 15-20 minutes during our once-a-week double block to write freely.
We had our double block yesterday and as planned, during the last 20 minutes the students were bent over their exercise books-turned-journals, scribbling away. As I walked around looking over some shoulders, I saw this in one student’s journal:
At the next desk over, I saw this:
I was horrified. What these two students, and perhaps a few others in the class, were writing in their free-writing journals were regurgitated notes from history class.
When Jenny and I had stressed, “You can write anything you want,” ‘anything’ certainly did not encompass notes from other classes, but our students don’t know that. I’ve understood the concept of a free writing journal or the notion of a diary since I was young, when crushes on boys during recess and being mad at my sister for not letting me borrow a shirt were big emotions. But even writing about these trivial things was a freedom of expression that Orkeeswa students have never been granted, taught, or allowed the cultivate, and many of these students are in their late teens, some in their early twenties. What they have been taught is that tests are important and memorizing notes are important. While their value of education is admirable – most of our students’ peers are working in a farm or working as a house girl or taking care of children – sometimes their mindset on it makes me want to bang my head on the wall. But it’s not their fault, it’s the Tanzanian way of education, it’s how it’s done.
After seeing those notes, I realized that I had to further explain what free-writing means. So last night I found two journals I have with me – one that I kept when I was in Barrow and one from my recent travels through east Africa, two very different times of my life. I flipped through the Barrow journal and found scribblings on loneliness, frustrations with work, the cold, a hatred for snow machines, and more loneliness. I forgotten how regularly I had written in my journal, but, thinking about it now, it makes sense – the journal was all I had, the only space to be honest because mostly I was faking it during the rest of the day. And as I recall, I stopped writing in it so much when I realized I was leaving Barrow earlier than expected, when I suddenly started to enjoy my time there.
In class today I read the students excerpts from both journals. I had to explain where Barrow was, that I had been there alone. I was hoping to give them a real life example of a journal, convey to them what a mind can express when given no boundaries, when it’s free. I hope I got through.
This introduces Moment #1 ~
After class, a student Mbayana asked, “Will you make your journal writing a book?”
I explained how turning writing into a book takes talent and money, that someone needs to find your writing good enough to pay you to write and turn your writings into a book. I didn’t go into self-publishing, but covered it by saying, “Turning writing into a book takes a lot of money and talent. You have to be a really good writer,” to which Mbayana said, “You can do it. I know you can.”
**
After we went over the idea of free writing journals, we worked on writing book reports, something we’ve done for the last two class periods.
Moment #2 ~
During teatime, I asked Violet, “Was English class boring today?”
“Yes,” she replied.
We had our double block yesterday and as planned, during the last 20 minutes the students were bent over their exercise books-turned-journals, scribbling away. As I walked around looking over some shoulders, I saw this in one student’s journal:
“Ngoni migration:
Ngoni migration is the movement of people from South Africa. These people originated from the place called Natal. This event took place in the 19th century.
The causes for these people to move from one region to another are as follows:
- Growth of population
- Shortage of land…”
At the next desk over, I saw this:
“The coming of people from Portugal to Africa. Portuguese are the people from Europe in one country known as Portugal. This started in the 15th century…”
I was horrified. What these two students, and perhaps a few others in the class, were writing in their free-writing journals were regurgitated notes from history class.
When Jenny and I had stressed, “You can write anything you want,” ‘anything’ certainly did not encompass notes from other classes, but our students don’t know that. I’ve understood the concept of a free writing journal or the notion of a diary since I was young, when crushes on boys during recess and being mad at my sister for not letting me borrow a shirt were big emotions. But even writing about these trivial things was a freedom of expression that Orkeeswa students have never been granted, taught, or allowed the cultivate, and many of these students are in their late teens, some in their early twenties. What they have been taught is that tests are important and memorizing notes are important. While their value of education is admirable – most of our students’ peers are working in a farm or working as a house girl or taking care of children – sometimes their mindset on it makes me want to bang my head on the wall. But it’s not their fault, it’s the Tanzanian way of education, it’s how it’s done.
After seeing those notes, I realized that I had to further explain what free-writing means. So last night I found two journals I have with me – one that I kept when I was in Barrow and one from my recent travels through east Africa, two very different times of my life. I flipped through the Barrow journal and found scribblings on loneliness, frustrations with work, the cold, a hatred for snow machines, and more loneliness. I forgotten how regularly I had written in my journal, but, thinking about it now, it makes sense – the journal was all I had, the only space to be honest because mostly I was faking it during the rest of the day. And as I recall, I stopped writing in it so much when I realized I was leaving Barrow earlier than expected, when I suddenly started to enjoy my time there.
In class today I read the students excerpts from both journals. I had to explain where Barrow was, that I had been there alone. I was hoping to give them a real life example of a journal, convey to them what a mind can express when given no boundaries, when it’s free. I hope I got through.
This introduces Moment #1 ~
After class, a student Mbayana asked, “Will you make your journal writing a book?”
I explained how turning writing into a book takes talent and money, that someone needs to find your writing good enough to pay you to write and turn your writings into a book. I didn’t go into self-publishing, but covered it by saying, “Turning writing into a book takes a lot of money and talent. You have to be a really good writer,” to which Mbayana said, “You can do it. I know you can.”
**
After we went over the idea of free writing journals, we worked on writing book reports, something we’ve done for the last two class periods.
Moment #2 ~
During teatime, I asked Violet, “Was English class boring today?”
“Yes,” she replied.
posted by Siapiau | 5:56 PM
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