Model School - Saints and Sex Ed

I started teaching at Model School last week. The whole idea behind it is that we get to practice teaching before we get to our post, so that we don't have to flounder in our real jobs. They also don't want people to have their first day be teaching a rowdy class of 100.

I'm teaching 5ieme, so the students are somewhere between 10 and 14. They seem to let some kids progress really rapidly and then others can get held back several times (One of my friends here teaches 1ere, which is about 11th grade. She has a student who is 13 and will be starting university before he turns 15).

My first day of class went pretty well. We went over classroom rules, which include (proposed by the students) no boxing, no smoking and no drinking beer. So far I have not had any problems with those rules, though I have had problems with students spinning their books, grabbing each other's butts, throwing things and hiding under desks.

My second day of class ended with me in the depths of despair. I walked out and thought, "What have I done? Why am I here? How did I commit myself to teaching for two whole years?!" When I went into the teachers' lounge and voiced all my woes, my fellow trainees said, "It can't possibly be as bad as all that! I'll come tomorrow and check things out! Sometimes my kids are bad too, but most of the time they're decently well behaved."

On the third day, the sun rose and burned through all the clouds. It was hot and dusty and still and I was sure that I was going to have an Old West-style showdown with my 46 students. I walked into class prepared with a story about Stevie, the most unhealthy person ever (He only eats beignets and chocolate. He smokes all the time. He has 5 beers at lunch and 5 more after school and is constantly constipated). Surprisingly enough, no one giggled, when constipation came up. I was like an Evangelical preacher - Should you smoke? (NOOOOOO!!!! says the Greek chorus) Should you drink beer? (NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!) They were honestly the best behaved they've ever been for me. I only had to put three students in the corner for talking and throwing things and didn't have to send anyone to the Surveillant General (the discipline master, who sends wayward students to cut down grass and trim banana trees with machetes. Yes, they do give weapons to the bad kids here...).

I walked out of class feeling pretty good about my class....until everyone came up to me saying that there was "a special place in heaven for people with classes like that."

Since then, my TEFL coordinator, the vice principal and the principal have all come to lecture my class on appropriate behavior and today I only had two kids in the corner and am only losing my voice a little bit.

I am really enjoying one part of model school, though. Sarah and I are doing a health and environment club and after getting permission from the school administration, we did some sex ed. It was wonderful! We were lucky enough that the HIV coordinator for Peace Corps was in Bafia, so we got free condoms, a female condom and a wooden "model." We started our class by talking about why you need to protect yourself, when you have sex. We asked questions like

"What happens if you get pregnant, when you're still a student?"
                "You have to stop going to school."
"And then what?"
                "No university."
"What happens if you can't do math, because you never learned?"
                "People will cheat you at the market."
"What happens if you don't understand science, because you never learned?"
                "You can't make things grow in your garden."
etc

Then we talked about what to do, if your significant other doesn't want to use a condom.

"But they're not comfortable!"
               "They're more comfortable than having a baby!"
"But they're so expensive!"
               "They're less expensive than a baby!"
"Don't you trust me?"
              "I do, but I want to protect you. What if I'm sick?"
"I'm going to leave you."
              (my personal favorite) "Then go away!"

And then we did some empowering talk - "It's my choice! It's my body! It's my health!"

When we finally got down to practicing putting on the condoms, we had everyone repeat how to do every step and when someone did it right, we all said, "No AIDS, no baby!" and then did the education clap (You do that whenever someone does a good job or to get kids attention).

It was honestly the most exciting thing that I have done, since I got to Cameroon. I felt like it's something that will actually make a difference. Even if one girl (or boy) doesn't get pregnant before they want to, then it's a success.

Where I'm going in the East, teen pregnancy is a really big problem and I'm looking forward to helping people learn to protect themselves and helping the girls realize that they have the power to say no or that they want to use a condom. It was just an amazing experience and it makes all the long hours of training totally worth it.