Sir, What is a Legacy?

One problem a large number of Namibian teachers have is speaking way over the heads of their learners. In order to acquire teaching qualifications a Namibian will have to complete some form of tertiary education, and in order to be accepted into an institution after grade 12 a learner must be excellent, compared to the rest of their class. To give you an idea, I assisted a few grade 12 teachers compile their pass/fail reports, and a generous estimation of how many learners scored high enough on their August examinations to meet the University of Namibia’s entry requirements would be 10%. When working, teachers address their classes as if they were talking with someone of their level of education even though they have had at least four more years of it than their learners (and with younger learners, far many more years) at serious and well-funded institutions (UNAM in the capital has a few more resources than does your average bush school).

It doesn’t help that the style of education here is not conducive to learners speaking up, speaking out, or really speaking at all. It is typical for a teacher to write the next batch of information from the syllabus on the chalkboard, which is called a summary, and the day’s lesson will be simply requiring the learners to copy it into their notebooks. Teachers can arrive late to class if they have already written the day’s summary, a teacher might not attend class if the summary is already up, and some teachers give the summary to a learner and have that child write it on the board for them. If a teacher speaks it is usually to repeat the words aloud and to occasionally ask, “Are we together?” which is Namlish that translates to “Do you understand?” Even primary school learners have already mastered the art of nodding and saying yes in unison so that the teacher will continue.

And so it happens that learners who do not know right from left, cannot identify an adjective or convert verbs into the past tense will come to me during study time with their science summaries and ask, “Mr. Brent, what is ‘sublimation’?” or with their social studies summaries and ask, “Mr. Brent help me ‘monarchy’?”

Earlier in the year our Circuit’s Inspector of Education, a legitimately eloquent man with a resonating voice, visited our school to give a motivational talk to the learners. It is a shame that almost none of his speech was comprehended. He led into one portion with, “All of us wish to leave a legacy…” I nodded at the thought, but grimaced slightly at the vocabulary. That day my English 11 class had a few free minutes at the end of the lesson, so one of my learners raised his hand and asked, “Sir, what is a legacy?” I had the learners walk outside and line up in the sand. Then I told them to stomp their feet into the ground, take a step back, and look at their footprints. I told them that a legacy is how you change something, it is what you leave behind after you go, it is like a footprint.

As the school-year is now in its final term, I find that I am thinking more and more about whether what I have brought to Oshikunde will last. When I teach in different classrooms I see what is left of the posters that I contributed to the walls. All of the HIV/AIDS Awareness posters my Grade 11 and 12s made have been torn down. My hand-written “CAPITAL and lowercase” alphabets are swinging slightly in the breeze and displaying pencil and chalk-drawn graffiti. The ROYGBIV colors poster for my grade 8 class has simply disappeared. When I see these, my lessons are momentarily interrupted as I press my lips tightly, inhale, and grunt before relocating my train of thought. I’m happy I’ve been able to carve out an area of the school blocks in the library over which I have complete control. Possessing the key and being present at all times when learners are inside allows me to ensure that the materials within are used and treated properly.

And use it we do! I teach twelve computer classes a week, and every day Monday through Thursday the library is almost full to capacity during both afternoon and evening study sessions. Monday afternoons I take one of the lower primary grades (1-4) for a short reading lesson and then story-time (I just can’t help myself), Tuesdays grades 5-7 rotate which learners are allowed to come in and take JUST 1 BOOK (to prevent complete mayhem) and read quietly for thirty minutes before I allow board games, Wednesdays are sports days outside, Thursdays grades 8-10 are allowed free rein, and each of these days in the evening two of the eight hostel classes are given priority in admission. Despite this maximization of our new resources, I worry about what will happen next year. There simply are too few teachers at Oshikunde. None of the teachers possess all three of the needed criteria of initiative, skill, and time to ensure that the library remains open next year. There are teachers I consider knowledgeable and responsible enough to entrust the media center to, but these teachers are already too busy to take on something else in addition to their regular work.

Another disturbing reality is the inability of Oshikunde to keep staff. Two teachers have left the school this year as well as both of our Heads of Department, and only one of the vacancies, the grade 7 post, was filled. Even worse, the now transferred HODs were the two strongest staff members that the school possessed. Namibia has begun awarding teachers a “bush allowance”, which is additional payment given on a scale to teachers depending on the amenities present at their school, to encourage teachers to take positions at disadvantaged schools. You would think that Oshikunde, which lacks dependable power and running water, would be in the group of schools whose teachers receive this payout (and every teacher here thought it would), but somebody in some office somewhere flubbed it up leaving Oshikunde off the list.

The truth is, even if the school remains exactly the same after I leave at the end of the year, and especially if it keeps bleeding staff members, the library and its shelves and posters and networked computers, will be used as much as they were last year when everything was in boxes behind locked doors. I have written letters to my organization, WorldTeach, as well as to the Regional Director of Education requesting a volunteer to follow me, and I enlisted my principal to do the same. At this point, that really is all I can do, and I now must face the troubling question of whether my year’s work was worth anything at all.

At first I’m down, but when I take just a moment to consider the answer I realize how absurd the question is. So what if posters decay? Classes still had months during which they could gaze at them and learn, and if learners made them they still benefited from the activity and the pride in seeing their work prominently pasted on the otherwise barren walls. Plus, the loss of a poster doesn’t erase the impact of a year’s worth of lessons. And what about the pictures printed, cds burned, CVs typed? One of my personal gauges of success is how few times I can wear a tie in my life, I shave once a week, and to cope with the heat I come to work with my sleeves already rolled up, but it isn’t too ridiculous to think that I might have been a model of responsibility and professionalism which could help some of these kids in the future. And the media center? Two terms of dictionaries, magazines, newspapers, easy readers, textbooks, Microsoft Word, Children’s Encarta software and more, what is worth the effort if that isn’t? Even if the media center is not reliably used for years to come, it has been used.

Your legacy is those things that are carried away from you in the heads and hearts of people you meet. Every action, good and ill, regardless of how minor or how seemingly temporary has the potential to roll on into the world unendingly. I don’t finish everyday here in the positive. Even so, I sure as hell try, and I go to sleep tired. I think I can be satisfied with that.

Still, I really hope we get a volunteer next year.