Brush with Haiti (24 page)

"Good morning, Teacher!" each one shouted with school day smiles unknown in the U.S.

"Good morning," I replied, wishing my head were less filled with details of the coming day's lectures so I might remember their names. We also picked up Magalie, a school administrator who wore so many hats it was impossible to know her exact title or position.

Once on the rural road, the ride became quiet except for the occasional motor scooter whizzing by. It felt good to see the entrance to the campus, which was marked by a small gate. Once inside, it seemed little had changed from the time I was able to see the presentation by Renate and Corrine on mental health. The chicken coops were there, as were the areas devoted to agricultural experimentation and pig husbandry. The lush grassy areas reaching to the river and the classroom and administration buildings were there. But there was something added. Large canvass tents emblazoned with "UN" were situated near the garden. They were erected to house students who had arrived from outside Jeremie. The living quarters were not ideal, but this was a sign that word had spread of a new post-secondary educational opportunity. As I walked toward the assembly hall, students gathered on the grounds by the dozens.

I love teaching.
Preparing for and meeting each new class can be daunting but I still love teaching. My work at UNOGA was to be quite different, but my years of experience provided a sense of calm as I entered the assembly hall. Because of high enrollment the regular classrooms would not suffice. The energy permeating the space was invigorating.

There were far more students than expected, and the number grew each day I was there. Before my introduction, Magalie made announcements to the students regarding registration matters, tuition payments, completion of work from the previous module on economics, and the delivery of grades. Questions regarding my own assessment and evaluation design swirled in my head. I was advised that students expected rigor and a tough grading scale and I complied. That was clear in my syllabus. But I had not developed any sort of rubric to judge performance, for I honestly could not predict what they might be able to accomplish. Planning and flexibility were the best qualities I could bring to this situation. By the first day I became aware that the economics module had been exceptionally challenging for many of the students and part of me wanted to go easy on them. However, that was not an option.

As Magalie spoke, I surveyed the group. It was huge. A general headcount told me there were more than 120 students. Desks were lined in rows along the concrete floor, 15 to 20 deep. Daylight peered through the walls, making it easier to see the front half of the class. Magalie and I stood on a platform some 3 or 4 feet above the desks. They were not tiered in any way, so I plotted how I would walk up and down the aisles as I spoke to them about history, hoping to keep their attention. I was grateful for the opportunity to get my bearings. It did not take long for the sea of unfamiliar students to transform into a group of college-aged individuals, not so different from my students in Indiana. Eager, engaged ones sat in the front, raising their hands and responding immediately to what Magalie was saying. Others were half-listening and half-conversing with their classmates. Some appeared disengaged, some appeared tired. Some looked at us with extreme skepticism and it was a pleasant surprise once again to learn that those can be the best students of all. One quietly got my attention.

"Do you want our work?" he asked.

"Pardon me?"

"We answered the questions you gave us," he explained.

"Oh, yes, yes!" I responded quickly and they handed their papers toward the front. They did receive the questions I had posed and they did write out their answers. And here they were, passing them forward as any students would have in any of the many classes I had taught before. This was going to work just fine, I thought to myself.

Each day when giving my lectures, one young man in particular watched my every move with a very serious look on his face. He listened intently and seemed to question everything I said, not verbally but mentally. At least that is what I sensed. He put me on edge, though not in a bad way. It is essential that teachers attempt to be impeccable in their word. We are not perfect, but we should not be clever or careless in what we convey. While it is good to have students around who can joke a bit and keep things light, it is equally valuable to have at least one who serves as a reminder that investigating human history is serious business.

Nothing can compare to the teaching of Caribbean slavery, especially to students of African descent. That must sound so white of me. When I say teaching Caribbean slavery, by no means do I suggest a justification for such a practice, nor the perpetuation of memory with the intent to keep the image of black as slave alive. From time to time teaching has brought "out of body" experiences, allowing me to observe what is happening in the classroom space while I go about doing my job. It happened when I exchanged glances with the serious young man, and it happened as I looked out across the vastness of dark faces in front of me. In the past, my discussions of slave history invoked unique and personal reactions from my students of African descent. Here, all of my students were of African descent, and the story of slavery had shaped the entire country differently.

I once attended an anti-war demonstration where some marchers wore t-shirts printed with the message "Teach Peace," about which I very much agree. Others wore shirts stating "Stop Teaching War," about which I also very much agree. But upon engaging in conversation with one, I learned that they meant stop teaching about war, for in teaching about war, we were continuing to keep the image and possibility alive. In his view, the very introduction of real world examples served to indoctrinate youth and sustain a society's militaristic tendencies. But I could not imagine not teaching war. Nor could I imagine not teaching slavery, and it was so much a part of this Haiti course on Atlantic history.

After a few days, one student was emboldened enough to ask why the course was called "Atlantic History" and not just "History" for it seemed that that was what they were learning. Other students agreed. The comment made me realize how much their education had centered on the Atlantic story until this point, and I recalled the textbook examinations from my earlier trip. Though I did not have an opportunity to look in depth at the subject matter covered in each grade before one would enter college, what I did learn was that much attention focused on historical developments that ultimately shaped Haiti. I reminded them that there was much that took place in the world outside of the Atlantic, making casual references to early advancements in places such as Mesopotamia and China. They agreed. The comment also made me more aware of just how much I was asking of them in such a short amount of time. We were, in fact, covering a wide swath.

Adding to the challenge was the fact that I was teaching with an interpreter. Doing so naturally doubles the time necessary for lectures and question and answer sessions. The quality of interpreting varied, from dynamic early in the session to more static and limited later on. The interpreter with which I developed the best rapport was an English teacher from town named Antoine. His language skills were impeccable and he was comfortable in his interactions with students in a way that could be developed only from years in the classroom. However, he apologized repeatedly for not being able to do his best due to tremendous pain from a dental problem. I did not notice that his interpreting was hindered in any way, but could tell from the tension in his face as the day wore on that it must have been very difficult for him. He was unable to come in the following day.

"I need to pull my tooth," he said when I last saw him before he left. His manner of phrasing seemed strange, considering his English abilities. But I blamed it on the pain. Subsequent interpreters did just fine, but the class meetings did not flow in the same way.

Another challenge to moving swiftly through the material was the students' fascination with topics I covered early on, especially those relating to Native Americans. Experience has taught me to adhere as carefully as possible to a course calendar insuring we do not get too far behind. It is natural to want to devote more time to each aspect of history, but logistically demanding to cover hundreds of years in even fifteen weeks, let alone three. Students complain, for example - and rightly so - that professors rush through the post-Vietnam War era due to lack of time. At UNOGA I had my sights on laying the groundwork for Enlightenment influences on independence and abolition movements to be addressed at the end of the course, but the students could not seem to stop asking questions about the indigenous tribes of the Americas. I had introduced the subject briefly to demonstrate the cultural differences among inhabitants of the various continents before they encountered one another, expecting students to show more interest in the cultures of Africa and Western Europe. But as the discussions wore on I recalled how quickly the indigenous population disappeared from the Caribbean following the European conquest, resulting in an absence of indigenous influence on many of the islands. They wanted to learn as much as they could.

The video I brought seemed to feed their curiosity. I was told before my arrival that it would be possible to show videos to the class, which was a relief. Just as they served to bring the historical world to U.S. students in a more powerful way, I believed they could do the same for students who had far less exposure to the outside. The students themselves eagerly assisted in upending some tables and placing them aside one another on the raised area at the front of the room to function as the basis of a projection screen. Magalie brought some white bed sheets from home, which they draped over the tables and fastened with clips. They took special care to smooth any folds to make sure we had the best possible viewing surface. Watching them gave me a much better appreciation for the technology-ready classrooms to which I had become accustomed. Accentuating that appreciation was the effort it took to provide electricity for the projector. Students fired up the generator and made sure all the connections were in order. In an instant, others leapt to the platform and raced to the wall behind our makeshift screen.

"Is there a problem?" I asked.

"Problem?" one of the young women replied. She had recently moved to Jeremie from Cuba with her family. Her English was good and she took every opportunity to converse with me.

"Is there something wrong back there?"

"No," she said, laughing. "They're charging their cell phones. They heard the generator."

I found the cross-cultural attachment to cell phones amusing. Making-do while living in a country with scarce electricity made college students resourceful in their own special ways.

I also liked the fact that they wore blue jeans and t-shirts - more than one displaying a portrait of Barack Obama -and carried backpacks. Paper was scarce, but they brought what they could. And many were quick to show me that they had brought history books to class. Somehow, someway, somewhere, they had found old history textbooks and shoved them into their backpacks. The delight of having in hand a textbook that was not required but might supplement learning contrasted markedly from much of my experience in the U.S. I shook my head, beginning to realize just how much I would miss them.

"When the rain was heavy,
everything came to a stop. Four days into my class, I waited for my ride to school, which didn't come and didn't come. Micheline, the woman who cooked for me, assured the best she could that it would arrive when the skies cleared. I imagined how difficult it might be to transport the students who depended on us for a ride to sit on water-soaked benches in the back of the truck, while rain soaked their perfectly prepared school outfits. So it made sense to wait. And I waited. I wondered how I would be able to cover all the material expected for that day. The truck arrived when the rain finally stopped an hour or so later and, like clockwork, we picked up Magalie and the others along the way.

Maneuvering through town proved more difficult as the depths of potholes were more difficult to gauge. They were filled with water to their brims. Our travel time doubled. Once into the countryside, the mud had softened and become slick. Travel time tripled. My worries about original schedules and lessons planned subsided when I listened to the students joking and carrying on behind me. They were unfazed by the delay, and seemed happier than ever to be on their way to class. I imagined they would stay well into the late afternoon if I had asked them to.

Once we arrived, it appeared that the clouds might stay at bay, at least for a while. Class went on as usual. Students were eager and I was so grateful that the rain had subsided. The huge lecture space covered with a sheet metal roof could have become an echo chamber with the pelting of rain. I was told the level of sound in such classrooms found throughout Latin America can be deafening, making learning next to impossible.

I was happy to have a room at all. I was reminded of the collapsed university classrooms in Port-au-Prince, where many hundreds of students not unlike mine had been buried in earthquake rubble. In subsequent months, surviving students - particularly the younger ones - had been terrified of entering schools. The aftershocks were relentless, making matters worse. University students were fortunate to have classes continue in tents provided by various organizations, including the United Nations. Here, eight months following the earthquake, Port-au-Prince students were unable to experience a learning setting with which they were familiar. We had hoped to see more opportunities outside of the Port-au-Prince region, which is what prompted our investment in the Universite de la Nouvelle Grand'Anse. Still, we could not possibly have handled any more students. By mid-week, enrollment in my class had grown to more than 140 and was still climbing.