I never really thought I would be a teacher. It wasn’t a career I ever had in mind for myself, and yet through a turn of events I am now a teacher to around one hundred students. After three months of training and some in-service training, I’m starting to feel a little bit like I know what I am doing. I try to create engaging lessons and push the students to work hard, but half the time I get half way through a lesson and I’m think, “What am I doing? This lesson makes no sense!” I just keep going hoping that I can make the next better.
In Rwanda schools they don’t use last names, cause they don’t have last names here. They have a Kinyarwanda name and a Christian name. Most teachers use their Christian name at school, like Teacher Isaac, Teacher Hilary, etc. I’m Teacher Tara…or more often than not just Teacher for short. As the students do an exercise I walk around checking their work. “Teacher,” is yelled from across the room. “Question Teacher!” “Coming,” I respond. It’s like a new nickname that I easily respond to.
I can’t say I love teaching because its so difficult to explain and to be sure every student comprehends what your saying. Teaching in a low-resource classroom with forty students at all different levels is hard. I have some students that understand the lesson in five seconds, and some that after weeks of concept still fail their quizzes. I’m often overwhelmed with how to help them all. I might not absolutely love teaching, but do I absolutely love my students. I love hanging out with them, making them laugh, teaching them songs, seeing them grow and excel.
The first student I met here is Angelique. She’s my neighbor and often fetches water at the spicket behind my house. For the longest time I couldn’t get Angelique to smile. No matter how enthusiastically I greeted her in Kinyarwanda there was just a simple response. In class her English was pretty low, and she didn’t seem to want to put the effort into speaking or participating. Then one day I was washing dishes out back. I was crying silently cause I missed my family back home. Angelique came around the corner to get water. I tried to pull myself together but I really couldn’t. She asked, “Are you sick?” “No, I miss my mom.” I said. She asked, “ When will she come visit?” “Next year,” I responded. Then she asked if she could see pictures sometime. “Yes, no problem.” I said smiling. She was witnessing me at this completely vulnerable state that I don’t usually share with Rwandans. After that day our relationship changed. She came with me to a Name-Giving ceremony. Happily skipping along beside me, offering to carry the raincoat I brought. She came over a few days later, and I showed her pictures of all my family. Angelique now sells me eggs from her families chicken on a weekly basis. But the most incredible thing that happened after that day is Angelique in class. Before she was quiet and didn’t put much effort, but suddenly she is asking questions, raising her hand, and turning in all of her assignments. I’m amazed, and now this fifteen-year-old girl is one of my friends.
In the last month or so I just decided that I would just put my heart out there and love my students passionately. Instead of yelling at them to get their attention I start just saying, “Hello, hello, hello,” until they finally look at the front of the room. I taught them American greetings last week so now when I ask, “How are you?” I get, “I’m wonderful!” And when I say, “What’s new?” they say, “Same ol’ same ol’” with a big smile on their face. When I see them on the street I greet them excitedly in Kinyarwanda, so they know I respect their language too. On Wednesday on my way home a whole group of them walked me home. I told them about the pumpkin I was going to cook into soup and bread. They were skeptical but I assured them it would be delicious. With my new focus on love over learning, I feel like they are more enthusiastic toward me too. We laugh more and work together better. I truly look forward to going to class every day because I get to hang out with them.
So if everything else in my Peace Corps experience falls flat; the computer lab project goes under, the library shrivels up, the community finance folks never actually use the skills they are learning, the students only learn present tense, at least I can hope to inspire a few of my students. To show the students that they are special, that they can contribute something to the world, and they can lead their own lives is enough for me. They have definitely inspired me in the process.