IB student Aila Rothweiler recently wrote an article about St. Clare's Head of Science Ian Gill and the time he dedicates to volunteering in Sierra Leone. The article was published in our IB student magazine Clarity and we thought it would be interesting to share on the website too:
For the past 3 summers, our Head of Science Ian Gill has travelled to Sierra Leone to do voluntary teaching at various underprivileged schools. He has spent time teaching in classes of up to 80 students, who lack simple resources like paper, pens and even a blackboard… and no, I do not mean a whiteboard.
I talked to Ian about his experiences in Sierra Leone and how he teaches and the children and people he interacts with. After this eye-opening interview, I’ve learnt how privileged we all are to be attending a school like St. Clare’s with the resources, staff and facilities to learn beyond what the children in Sierra Leone could imagine. Ian kindly shared many stories with me about visiting and helping this third world country, and now I want to pass them on to you…
Ian’s trips to Sierra Leone were fuelled by his own personal desire to go out to Africa and teach. He does not travel with an organisation or charity, but pays for himself to spend up to three weeks in Africa. Ian made a contact through the local church St. Andrews a couple of years ago. Prior to going there in the summers, he taught at international schools in Kenya, Uganda and Zambia for about ten years. St. Andrews always had a link with Sierra Leone:
“One year I was thinking that I would like to do something in Africa again. One of the guys from the church came over form Sierra Leone (a man named Yata) and I thought I might just have a chat with him to see if he had anything I could help with. He came to St. Clare’s to meet me. I had never met him before and told him I was thinking about teaching. Straight away he said ‘YES’. I said ‘All I can teach is Chemistry’ and he said ‘YES’, and suddenly that was it.”
Ian told me Yata has a great personality. He loves sport, he loves education and he knows everyone in Freetown (the capital of Sierra Leone), including the president and the ladies selling charcoal.
“He treats all people completely equally”, Ian says, “It doesn’t matter if you’re the queen or a tramp in the street, he’s just delightful to everyone. So when I said I’d like to come out, he just contacted his friends at schools. He set me up at all these different schools and after the first year, they all said please come back.”
And after the first year he did go back. Ian has gone to Sierra Leone every year for the past three years now. When I asked him what the teaching standards were like in Sierra Leone, I learnt that they were nothing compared to the luxury we have here at St. Clare’s:
“Teaching is pretty poor out there; teachers are not paid. So anyone who can get a slightly better job will leave teaching and that’s what people try and do. So the teachers aren’t trained, there are no facilities and there’s no backup. It’s really basic stuff. I can’t give out photocopies and I have to write everything on the board. There are no laptops, no computers, no Internet; just a blackboard and some chalk… and sometimes there’s no chalk.”
When I asked if Ian ever tries to do experiments with the students, he almost laughed. With such limited resources it impossible for the students to do any practical work. The only thing Ian has ever done is made an indicator. “They have got a skeleton”, he says “and that’s amazing”.
The schools in Sierra Leone follow the syllabus of the West Africa Exam board. Although the chemistry is equivalent to the level of IB/A-levels, Ian says:
“The syllabus is really vague; it’s not like the IB or British system. Quite often the teachers have not been trained how to teach the things. For my IB syllabus, I know what to teach, whereas theirs is pretty much all guesswork. When I go there, I would sometimes just get the guideline in the morning. They say we want you to do ‘bonding’, but I don’t know what they’ve covered, so I’ve just got to be very flexible.”
However, the children at the schools in Sierra Leone are eager to learn. They value the fact the Ian comes to help them and they respect him. I asked Ian how he finds a way to teach the students, to get through to them. How does he make sure they learn something from him just being there for one or two days? How does he work with the other teachers at the schools?
“A lot of it is encouragement. The fact that someone is there stimulates interest amongst teachers and students. I sometimes feel like a drop in the ocean - I’m there for a couple days… How much can I do in a couple days?
So what I’d like to do more of is teaching the teachers, for example, telling them something like; ‘Look, this is how I would approach acids and bases’… because no one has told them. They find it difficult to ask students questions because when you’ve got a class of eighty, you can’t have lots of little discussions going on or get direct input. So pretty much the teachers stand there and talk whilst the students write. The students never get a chance to think or express or ask questions.”
Unlike the relationships we have with our teachers at St. Clare’s, where we can interrupt and ask questions if something is not clear, it is very difficult for teachers at the schools in Sierra Leone to build a relationship with their students. Does that affect what you can teach them?
“With class of eighty, if I go there for an hour and spend 30 seconds with each student, well then the hour is gone. What can I say in 30 seconds? ‘Oh hello, how are you?’ So sometimes yeah I wonder how much use it is, except I know it stimulates a bit of interest and hopefully they can do a little bit more, and if I’ve taught them one thing, then maybe that unlocks the little key.”
Ian tells me the children always seem eager to learn and that they value the fact that he comes to their school: “Most people are incredibly poor,” he says, “And I mean poor. They’ve got no food, no clothes, no shoes, no books, no textbooks, or paper.”
However, his teaching is well respected. The students assumed Ian was good from the start and appreciate that he came. He does admit that big classes are more difficult to control and not all students are perfect. People in Sierra Leone have no landlines, just cell phones, so just like here at St. Clare’s, Ian catches them texting during class now and then:
“It was really rare, when I told a student off for having their phone out, the other students got really angry with that one student. They were really upset as if that student was being disrespectful to me.”
The school system in Sierra Leone is different to here in England as there is no free education. Some of the schools are private, but they’re not in the same way that St. Clare’s is a private school. Ian explained to me that the Government does not pay to start a new school, but instead people have to start them themselves. It could be interested parents, an organization or a church and after five years, the Government takes over the funding.
And do you know how much it costs to set up a school? How much some people in Sierra Leone cannot afford to pay? Just TEN POUNDS a year. For us, this is the money we spend on a meal, or an item of clothing, but for families in Sierra Leone, it’s the money that makes the difference between getting an education, or not:
“Its only 10 pounds a year and some of them cant afford it”.
The children that Ian teaches in the schools and the families that he meets all come from extremely poor backgrounds. He told me he knows many orphans and homeless people. There is no social security, so if you don’t have a job, you can’t pay your rent and you can’t send your child to school.
Ian told me about a very specific situation, where he gave his old camera to someone and it led to several children attending school. The children took pictures and charged money for them, and then passed the camera on for others to do the same. It shows how such a small act of giving can turn into a business and help these people.
Ian also talked to me about some of the children who experienced the terrible fate of having to become a child soldier. Sierra Leone was plagued by a civil war from 1991 to 2002, in which 94% of the infrastructure was destroyed and 50,000 people died:
“I met people there who were child soldiers, who had killed 20 people in a war. They used to kidnap them from their families and drug them. They were seven or eight years old, given an AK 47 and told to go and shoot their parents. Those people are now the people I am teaching. Quite often, these people live next door to someone who murdered their family during the civil war.
I just wonder how on Earth they can deal with that. They could stir up trouble if they wanted to, but basically they made the decision and said ‘look, it was awful for ten years, but we don’t want to go back’. So they live and let live. They’ve made that decision and you just hope that it lasts.”
The one activity that brings the people together in Sierra Leone is football:
“They just love their sports. They play in the rain, they play on the beach, they play every morning and they play with bare feet. Yata is a sports man as well. It’s everyone’s dream to get out and be a big sportsmen.”
Among many other things like textbooks, mobile phones, and projectors, St. Clare’s has sent laptops to the schools in Sierra Leones. This means this summer during the 2014 World Cup, these children will be able to watch the sport they love.
I asked Ian to sum up his experiences for us...
“I get a huge amount out of it. People there always say I am giving to them but I actually feel really good doing it. I feel privileged to have been able to see how these people live and to have been invited into their lives. I have seen families who are cooking on charcoal and have no water or electricity, but are collecting rain from the roof. I love seeing that side of life.
Everyone I know there is poor, but rich in spirit. I mean talk about money not buying happiness; these people are amazing. I learn from them and they are so giving. They’ve got no money and they buy me presents, it’s incredible seeing such generosity of spirit. Having come from such a privileged place, to see the people with nothing give you everything is incredible.”
So Ian, what do you have to say to the St Clare’s students? What can you tell us or give us advice about?
“I’d encourage people to look wider and get involved; help others because it helps you. It doesn’t have to be in a big scale, it can be something very local. If it means a bit of discomfort then go for it, it’s a good experience. Seeing what other people are going through makes you re-evaluate your whole life.”
Don’t think though that these people in Sierra Leone are unhappy; Ian told me that they accept their life as it is. But could you say that about yourselves? Would living in a noisy city, sharing one room with your family, not having the certainty of education and barely having enough money to survive make you happy?
Starting today, become more aware of how lucky you are and the opportunities you have, not just because of St. Clare’s, but also because of the family you come from. Look at what a huge difference where you are born makes. St. Clare’s has already sent many things to the schools over there, but lets keep collecting things. Look at the difference a camera can make! So whether it’s a pad of notebook paper, a football, pens, shoes, old clothing or books, don’t throw it away, donate it.