FRUSTRATION OF AN EXPATRIATE TEACHER

Teaching in a rural high school is frustrating for an expatriate teacher. Having worked in Australia, the teacher finds a striking contrast between the outgoing attitude of many Australian children and the silence of students in PNG rural high schools.

Let us picture a lesson in an Australian class. The teacher may tell the class that they were to learn about dolphins. One student shoots up a hand to tell the class that they have dolphins that come up the river at their beach house. They are friendly and allow the children to play with them.

Another tells of a mother dolphin and her baby. She wants to tell the class about how a mother gives birth and lifts the baby to the surface.

One more student wants to talk about a pod of dolphins that was stranded on the sandy beach in North Queensland. The lesson is almost over and the teacher has just stood there.

Then the teacher tells the class in Papua New Guinea that they would talk about dolphins. What is a dolphin? Silence. Where do we find dolphins? Silence. We find them in the sea. Who has seen a dolphin? Silence.

Here is a picture of a dolphin. What kind of living creature is it? Silence. It is a mammal. What is a mammal? Silence.

Sigh. I will put a summary on the blackboard. Please write the summary in your science book. There are reasons for this silence. A code of silence of students may exist. The clever students have been intimidated into saying nothing.

Many rural students do not understand the English and have never seen a dolphin even in a book. Many classes of students kill the initiative of teachers. They drag teachers down to a low level of output.