Month: February 2009

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Mombasa

Two Days in Second Grade

Yesterday I was late to the morning assembly, and apparently it was a short one, because it was already over.  As the children filed into their classrooms, I joined the circle of teachers who were milling around to see if there were any announcements, and there were: the Class Two teacher informed me that she is traveling up to coast to go home for the day.  “Paul, you will need to teach Class Two” was the extent of my guidance.  Normally I teach the vocational students in the morning, but they would have to wait.

The children were waiting, mostly seated, when I entered the room.  I explained that I would be the substitute, and they quickly pointed out the calendar to me so I could see the schedule.  First up: News.  “What’s news?” I ask.  No one knows.  I imagine trying to explain current events to this group who, for the most part, can’t color.  I decide to spend all day doing English vocab in different permutations.  Mostly I draw funny pictures on the blackboard, try to get the kids to tell me what they are, then label them and have them copy.  It was a long day of this.  By the end my hands, shirt, and trousers were covered in chalk.

Today after the Ash Wednesday mass, which was entirely in Swahili, I walked back to school with the Catholic students and resumed teaching Class Two again, and continued for the rest of the day.  I followed a similar routine, but for “Science” class, I decided to teach “ice” and “steam.”  As they were drawing pictures of ice cubes, it occurred to me, why not bring some into class to make this more tangible?  I scurried home (it’s visible from the classroom) and brought back an ice cube tray.  Upon my return, I began passing around the cubes to demonstrate “cold,” another vocab word I had written in the board.  In hindsight this shouldn’t have been surprising, but the children began eating the ice cubes, which prompted them to fight, to pull each others’ mouth open, and finally to surround me shrieking for more ice cubes, which I did not have.  They were so loud that the neighboring classroom’s teacher came over and told them all to hush.  Classroom noise is not usually a problem: it’s a Deaf School, after all.

I filled up both ice cube trays tonight so they will be ready for tomorrow, in case I decide to reintroduce anarchy into the classroom.

I do feel certain about one thing right now: the blackboard is the enemy.  And as much as I’m reading, writing, and focusing on computers as the solution, it’s not the only solution.  I feel strongly that well-selected worksheets/workbooks could do far more good for the students than the blackboard model (or for that matter, the projector/TV model— one visual simply can’t apply to that many children at the same time).  At any given moment there just aren’t enough attentive eyes on the board, and of the children watching, even fewer have a good understanding of what’s happening.  Custom worksheets for the students, handed out according to ability, would be far more valuable.

I’m going to buy a printer.

Categories
Mombasa

Obligatory Photos of Adorable Children

“Children” here is used loosely—many of the students are not that young!

Sunday was not technically a day off for me, as I joined 129 or 131 or so students (it was my job to count them on the bus) and a few teachers and staff on a field trip to Mtwapa.  It was “Disability Day 2009” or some such event, and our Deaf students were the first to arrive, followed by, in no particular order, the children with cerebral palsy, other children in crutches/wheelchairs, the albinos, and others whose disabilities I couldn’t superficially observe.

The day consisted of playing on the swings until the other schools all arrived, then watching cultural dances and songs (not necessarily the most engaging thing for the deaf, but there was a KSL interpreter there, which helped a little).  After that, lunch was served, then everyone got back on their busses and left.

Numerous children at my school have disabilities beyond their deafness as well, for example the boy on the left, below, is autistic:

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And the girl on the left, below, is wheelchair-bound:

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These children are just little and cute, so well worth a picture:

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And here are some kids on the swings:

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The event overall was a hit: the kids get to go somewhere different and the lunch was curry (it was an Indian-sponsored event), and that’s pretty different from the usual cafeteria meals.

I read a lot, sitting behind the big crowd in a cooler spot, since I’m not much for the song-and-dance, and I finished The Professor and the Madman, which I enjoyed very much.  It made me want to be an Oxford elite and to dedicate my life to some obscure but important cause.

In other news, I’m sleeping a lot.  I don’t think I have mono but I’m definitely very tired, as I seem to sleepwalk through my teaching responsibilities, nap, eat, and then sleep again.  There are so many variables, what with the malaria medication, that I really have no idea what’s going on, but it’s frustrating.  I feel like 50% is my new 100%.

One of the library computers died, which makes me sad.  It was the fastest one—a 233MHz machine, and the only one with USB, and for some reason it’s moving at molasses speed now, taking ten minutes to get through the BIOS.  This means I’ll be using the 100MHz machine in its place, which has far less potential.  I’ll get more technical in a later post.

The 2008 KCPE results are also in, and they’re basically just a reshuffle of the 2007 results, with a similar average.  My school is very happy because we moved up in the rankings, and despite my feeling on the matter I didn’t interrupt to rain on the parade, but really, the change can be chalked up to statistical luck.

Well, I’ve been up for almost six whole hours, so its off to bed again for me!

Categories
Mombasa

What do the KCPE results really mean?

The KCPE is the test taken by all graduating 8th graders in Kenya.  The results determine admittance into high school, and the numbers can also be used to competitively rank primary schools.

In looking again at the numbers, which I had written about before, I realized that I had a lot to learn about these kinds of tests before I could understand what the results really mean.  Before I talk more about the KCPE, let’s look at what is helpful to know first.

As I learned recently, there are two basic kinds of tests: criterion-referenced and norm-referenced.

Criterion-referenced tests are simple to understand.  If I asked you to memorize the fifty US states, for instance, and then had you list them from memory, that would be a criterion-based test.  I’m checking to see if you learned what I asked you to learn.  This type of test is not really designed to pit students against each other… there would be nothing wrong with all students getting 100% on the test.  If anything, it grades the teacher: if all the students did poorly, then maybe I should have done more to reinforce the state names, instead of just asking you to memorize them.

A norm-referenced test is designed to pit students against each other.  They are quite practical.  Take for instance the SAT that most US students take as a college entrance exam.  A college can only accept so many students, so the test is designed to separate out the students as much as possible to make that process easier.   The test is designed so that the scores are as spread out as possible: few get a perfect score, and few completely fail.  If many students got a perfect score, or if many failed, it would be more difficult to differentiate between students at the extremes.

When I wrote about the average Deaf 12th-grader in the US having the reading capabilities of a Hearing 4th grader, that was referring to a special kind of norm-referenced test done by Gallaudet University.  This kind of test is taken first by a “norming” group, and that group sets the standard for everyone who takes it afterward.  In this case, a Hearing group of students of all ages took the test, and the results become the baseline.  If we averaged all the Hearing fourth graders’ results, and the result was 60 points (I am making this number up), then getting 60 points on the test would be considered “fourth grade level” based on the Hearing norms.  So when the average Deaf 12th grader takes the test and gets 60 points, (s)he is considered to be reading at “fourth grade level.”

This test does not help us understand if fourth graders know what they’re supposed to know considering their age.  It’s entirely possible that a criterion-referenced test might reveal that, on average, Hearing fourth graders know exactly what they should know, but Hearing 12th graders are, on average, only familiar with material that they learned in the 8th grade (I’m making this up as an example).  The point is that you can’t compare the two kinds of tests—the statistics get all wacky and apples-and-oranges.  Literacy statistics in particular are all over the place: some look at total population including immigrant population, and some (like the Gallaudet test) look only at currently active students.

So the KCPE.

The KCPE is norm-referenced.  Although no effort is made to distinguish between “grade levels” like the previous examples, is is designed to determine high school placement, which is highly competitive because there are only three Deaf high schools in the country.  So if the test is doing its job, few students will fail, and few will excel.

The lowest possible KCPE score is zero and the highest is 500.  The highest attained score each year is usually in the mid-400s.  It is mostly multiple choice with four options, although there is single composition included in the test that is factored into the English score.  Ignoring the essay, a student would receive a score of 25%, or 125 points, just by guessing “C,” for example, on every single question.  I am not sure how heavily the essay is weighed, but assuming it was left blank, that would bring the score down more.  For the purpose of this conversation, anything in the low-100’s would be considered complete failure, basically the equivalent to filling out the test at random.

The average 2007 KCPE score for Deaf Schools is 123.05.  I’ve heard that it went down for 2008.  Only one Deaf School in the entire county has scored over 140 for two years in a row.  This means two things:

  1. The test is not working for Deaf Schools as intended.  When considering a student with an average score, high schools can’t tell the difference between the following two types of students:
    • The student who knows absolutely nothing and guesses at random.
    • The students who actually knows the correct answer to 25% of the test and leaves the rest blank.
  2. With one exception, Deaf Schools are doing abysmally.  To not even register on the national test, to be statistically indistinguishable from complete guessing, means that something is terribly wrong.

What is even worse, I think, is that the Deaf Schools are ranked using these numbers, even though they could easily be plotted on a bell curve centered around 123.05, which simply means that some schools had better or worse guessers that year.  COMPLETLEY INGIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES, and dangerous, because a bad school with good guessers could appear to outperform a better school.

My recommendation for the test (in case anyone from the Ministry of Education is reading) would be some combination of:

  • Designing a different test for Deaf Schools to make ranking and admissions more accurate.
  • Modifying the scoring system to penalize guessing.

My recommendation for making students do better on the test:

  • Well, that’s what keeps me up late, isn’t it?

OK, enough numbers.  Here’s a really grainy photo taken with my cameraphone on Valentine’s Day.  We’re waiting for our delicious Indian dinner.  The girls were given real roses by the restaurant.  No flower for me, though, but the good company made up for it. 🙂

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