What does school look like In Benin??
Here is a quiz in 7th grade. We are testing them on irregular plural nouns and possessive pronouns. Benin uses the French grading system which means all grades are out of 20 instead of 100.
As an American I was very confused why we grade a test with 15 questions out of 20 points. It's a lot of math and division. Also a perfect grade of 20/20 is reserved for god. You can only get 20/20 if everything is completely correct and well written and copied. 19/20 is rare also. 10/20 passes and is frankly D work or worse. Class here in Benin is not really about getting the highest score. It is about passing on to the next grade. Let me explain.
There are 8 classes. A students final grade in each class is averaged into one score out of 20 and If it is above 10/20 they move to the next grade. If it is 9/10 or lower they repeat the grade again. Some kids have been in the same grade for 3 years. Most drop out when they fail two times. It all depends. There are not many benifits to being the best student of the class. Yes scholarships exist but the real way to get scholarship is to take the BAC (ACT équivalent) and get an amazing score. It doesn't matter if you passed with a 16/20 or 11/20.
Each semester there are two big tests and 3 quizzes. To calculate the class grade you make the average of the quizzes and add it to the 2 tests and divide my three. Last semester in my class of 6th graders, 8 of them didn't pass. They have to work extra hard second semester or they will be held back a year. This is why my classes in Benin have huge age ranges. There are the kids who pass every year, they start 6th grade at 10 and leave 9th grade at age 14-15. But then I have some students in 9th grade who are 20 because they had to repeat classes over and over again or even parents sometimes cannot pay school fees and remove them from school for a year. Kids not moving up in grades is not solely based on their ability, the school fees deter many from finishing. Some kids parents die during the school year and they have to assume responsibility for their younger siblings and get a job, some parents want their kids to work on their farm and don't think school is worth it. So many factors impede on their success but I have many many brilliant students.
Classes are all 2 hours long, with 15 min breaks between. The 2 hours usually consists of 2 - 50 minute lessons and 20 minutes to take notes. For example, we teach the function of expressing complaints for 50 minutes on the blackboard. Then the students take their notebooks and copy every single word off of the board since they do not have books, they create their own materials with notes. Notes are for blue pens, titles for black and green pens and corrections for red pens and kids will be in trouble if they write their quiz in red or green pens. Some days taking notes takes so long that you can't even teach 2 lessons, for instance when we do a reading activity, the entire board is full of words and over 3 pieces of chalk are used up. But in order for out students to do reading activities we need them to have books but none of them have books so we are obliged to copy it all ourselves. Sometimes I am able to make copies and print it but at almost $.50 cents per page and 72 kids it isn't really in my month budget of $200.
This is for writing activities but also learning languages is very much based on seeing and actions. We taught job vocabulary. I have no way to show my students photos of electricians, mechanics, teachers and tailors. I have to draw them all on the board myself and students COPY MY DRAWINGS. my art will forever be memorialized in over 100 notebooks. Same with foods, emotions, animals, transportations and more. I have become a master artist.
Here was a lesson about markets. You see words like bargain, price, goods, shop, coins. Some things I can explain but for kids to remember they need to see it. So therefore I am a "vrai artiste" I even have kids beckoning me over to ask if I can draw it in their notebook. I say no and joke that each drawing of mine costs $.50 and they actually offered it but no I told them it is best for them to learn to draw.
You think if this was america the kids would just take a photo or have it already on their Chromebooks. The effort to learn the languages with no materials is high.
Every Monday at 7:40 kids line up in their respective classes and we sing the National anthem and the director gives his weekly news to the kids. Then the teachers discuss any issues we have. Sometimes this meeting takes over 1 hour and runs into my class time but problems must be regulated while we are all there together.
The school year starts always second or third week of September. Kids are slow to show up. Many people in the village don't know what day classes start but then they see kids in uniform and know they have to send their kids the next day. We don't usually start teaching until 2 weeks into the school year since many students won't show up or classes shift around. There is one two week break each semester, Christmas break and easter break. Then the end of the school year is much harder to define. According to to government the school year ends June 20-25. But kids take their final exam May 20-23. After taking the exam the number of kids present almost immediately halves. Then the first week of June you will just sit in the teacher lounge because there are 2-5 students in your class when there was 50 before. The teachers do the average calculation all on paper with their phone calculator and it takes a lot of time since at my school there are 8 classrooms and 8 subjects and each class has about 40-60 kids.
Send me any questions you have and I will be sure to answer!
French words of the week
Vrai = true
Faux = False
Weme words of the week
Hanvo lan - pork meat
Ahime - market
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