Teaching Means Building School

I taught last year at Kurasini International College, a secondary school in Dar es Salaam run by the African-American Institute primarily for refugees from southern Africa. Most of the students came from Mozambique, Southwest Africa or Rhodesia. When we arrived, the "school" consisted of a house whose rooms had been converted to classrooms. The rooms were crowded and uncomfortable in the heat.

From June until January we went to school for half the day and the other half was spent working with our students to build a new school. The first two months our spirits were high, the weather was relatively cool, and there was almost no visible evidence of our labor. We built a gravel road, dug holes in the ground for building supports, and made the building supports out of steel rods and steel rings.

The most rewarding work came in October and November when we had a chance to pour concrete. We shoveled sand and gravel and concrete into metal bowls which students carried on their heads and threw into the cement mixer. Others picked up wheelbarrows full of cement, raced down narrow boardways and dumped them into the stone bed of the foundation. It was hard work and the sun was getting hotter, but when the day was over we could see the floor of the building that we had made.

By December, the beginning of the Tanzanian summer, all of us had begun to suffer from the heat. One student echoed the general feeling in an article in the school paper. "We know that erecting buildings is most suitable in areas where the climate is moderate."

The new school was inaugurated by examination period in January. But even exams could not dull the pleasure that I felt at having my own desk in a large airy classroom with what seemed to be miles of black-board space, or my students' pleasure at having separate desks and a large library. Most important, though, was the feeling that the school was ours. Not only were we the students and teachers--we were the builders.

Although our students had been serious before, a new spirit emerged from the new school. No longer was the school looked on as a waiting room for scholarships to the U.S. and East Europe. Now it was permanent--a real school. The students worked harder and the teachers worked more effectively.

School was not all hard work, however. We organized a soccer team, a debating club, and solicited contributions to a school paper. The soccer team was generally victorious and defeat was taken pretty hard. After a defeat, one student stoically commented in the newspaper, "On all accounts, I recognize that when a man goes to battle he has to win. But in this case, my dear commrades, we had to surrender."

The debates covered such varied subjects as: "The bride price should be abolished," "A one party state is better than a many party state," "To live in the city is better than to live in the country." The men teachers debated the women teachers on the subject "A woman's place is in the home" much to the amusement of the student body. The primarily male student body voted victory to the men's affirmative position.

By the time June came, when we had to leave, the school was running smoothly and the classes were well established in normal secondary school curriculum. Other V.T.A. teachers were arriving to fill our places, but we all regretted that we could not stay longer to see further progress in the work that we had begun