"What is pus??"

Written on January 21st, 2011
Yesterday I spent the morning at the senior secondary school attending a lecture on Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and STIs with my peer health club students. It was very much a fly by the seat of your pants session. Clearly the group that organized it had some extra funds they wanted to use up so they decided to call in a local nurse from Kerewan to talk to the students. Don't get me wrong, this is all well and good, well intentioned and much needed but as I've noticed lately with my work here, myself and the people I work with sometimes enthusiasm over the different that will be made overrides planning and consideration. I'm certainly guilty of getting so wrapped up and excited that I don't really take the time to consider important factors like my audience, their needs and sustainability.
This lecture came after almost six months of work on my part and the part of another agency to educate the students abut HIV/AIDS. Something we hadn't talked about at all is TB, so a session just on that would have been great but throwing STIs, HIV and TB together just caused a lot of confusion and repetition of information. I hardly could follow the presenter so I'm sure that the students didn't do much better. Because the presentation was so bad I found myself zoning out and thinking about what conclusions I can draw after a year of attending events at Gambian schools.
I think my most interesting observation has been that though all Gambian students are English language learners, i.e. they don't speak English at home, teaching and curriculum here is not geared towards ESL. Though English is the official language of the Gambia in reality so little of the population is literate in/speaks English that assuming that students will learn effectively without any attention given to their English learning status is really just setting them up for failure. The natural reaction to this system is for students to just memorize what they learn which means they can answer questions if they've memorized them but have very little ability for original or abstract thought. In addition asking questions is seen not as a tool for learning but a failure of the students. At this lecture the presenter threw out hundreds of very scientific terminology for STIs (including pus) but refused to answer students questions when they raised their hands asking them to write their questions down for the end of the lesson, effectively telling them not to ask any questions.
For me, coming from a background where inquiry and questions were celebrated this orientation is both extremely frustrating and discouraging. I wonder how many things would be different here if people celebrated rather than demonized what we don't know.