Crash Landing Into The End Of The Year
Written on January 1st , 2026 by Ben Weber
I began writing this blog post back in October to help me process and think through difficulties I was experiencing in my life. However, these last three months have been overwhelming with new things that I’ve wanted to add to this post every week. I’ve split this up into two blog posts. This one is about my struggles in October and November. The second one is about my discoveries and changes in December.
The yearly exams for my Form 2 students were in November. Unfortunately, I’m predicting that many of my students will not pass this exam or even get a question right. I feel like I’ve let my students down since I was learning (and am still learning) how to teach this year. In review of this last year, I don’t feel like the training I had before service set me up for success in my role as a teacher. We did some practice teaching during our training but did not discuss much about classroom management and what the main issues students and teachers face here in Tanzania.
I started this year under the impression that my Form 2 students understood the material from Form 1. But many of my students did not have a strong understanding of the fundamentals from Form 1 needed for the Form 2 content. For instance, many students do not have a strong grasp on negative numbers and algebra. Without those fundamentals, it would be unfair for me to expect them to perform well on questions about quadratic equations, Pythagoras’s theorem, or geometric transformations. So, I haven’t been able to teach as much of the Form 2 content as I would’ve liked since we’ve needed to review Form 1 nearly every month before preceding to the next topic. I believe they understand the Form 1 content better, but the tests are quite hard for the students to apply their knowledge. In my observations, mathematics is by far the hardest subject due to the exam being so particular in the formatting of answers and solutions. For many questions on the mathematics exam the student only gets points for the correct final answer or gets most of the points for the final answer. In my grading, many students start to solve the question being asked but are unable to complete the question and get zero points. On the last practice exam nearly half my students scored a zero on their exam.
From my perspective in Tanzania, the teaching style is to provide all the content in lectures rather than have competency in a topic. In most other subjects this is a passable teaching style since the exams are easier to score points on. The students take notes on the topic, study the notes and passages needed for the exams and then regurgitate what they remember on the exam. In subjects like History, Civics, and English, the grading is much more subjective, and the students can score points despite not getting the whole answer. Also, students only need 40% to pass a subject.
From the national scores it is clear to me that this teaching style cracks for the STEM subjects like math, physics, biology, and chemistry. This difference in teaching styles and practices has sparked several conversations I’ve had with the fellow math teachers and the second headmaster at the school. Because I’m spending so much time on Form 1 reviews and I’m far behind on topics in Form 2. Which has added to my stress about my performance as a teacher. I’ve conceded that I won’t even be covering the last two chapters (Set and Series and Statistics) in the Form 2 book. I have tried to explain to the teachers that since the students don’t have a strong grasp on the Form 1 content, I cannot expect the student to perform well on the harder Form 2 topics. I am trying to teach and develop a mathematical critical thinking style for the exams, but many students want to apply their test taking process from other subjects to mathematics.
The teachers have suggested that I use punishment as method of motivation for the students. Here in Tanzania, “punishment” is to whack students with a stick. I don’t agree with the practice and actively remove myself from situations when it occurs, but it’s a key part of the discipline culture here. In the states, I remember getting detention or having conversations with the school administration if my behavior was bad. It’s just not realistic to apply those methods of discipline here. The students arrive an hour before most teachers do to prepare the classrooms and clean the environment and stay many hours after school is “over” to socialize, play games, or study. Many are at the school all day long (literally from sunrise to sunset) and some students stay in unused classrooms or at the nearby dorms so I feel like detention would be hard to apply.
I feel for my students since they’re under immense pressure. My Form 2 students took exams on 9 subjects during their exam week in November. I don’t remember ever taking more than 6 exams during a final week in the states (in middle school, high school, or college). If they don’t do well, they get hit to improve. The students don’t really have great study habits outside of rereading the notes and memorizing. I’ve introduced some flashcards and math games that they can play to study certain topics, but it just seems like so much content to recall for 2 and half hours to 3-hour long exams.
I am really excited for the next year, partially so I get to start over again with some experience and partially for an easier form. I won’t be teaching Form 2 or 4 next year since those are national exam years and I won’t have as much pressure for a good performance as I did this year. I have learned a lot from teaching this year and I know that I will learn much more next year. I’m much more confident in my Swahili now, so I feel like I am better equipped to teach to in Swahili and English. I’ve gotten better at slowing down my speaking while teaching or explaining topics. And I’ve invested in a fair amount of teaching materials which will help me next year.
Another stressor I was dealing with in October and November was related to my housing situation. I am fortunate enough to live a very nice house for Tanzanian and Peace Corps standards. I am grateful for my placement and cherish the good relations I have with my neighbors. My neighbors are well off and are on the older side (I’m not quite sure of their age), but all their children have moved out to attend college or pursue careers elsewhere in the nation. So, they have hired a house helper to support them throughout the week with chores like cleaning the property, washing clothes and dishes, and other things. When I first arrived, the house helper was a 17-year-old boy named Anania who was very helpful to me when I was still learning about doing chores here in Tanzania. In February, his contract ended and Tina and her toddler, Fredi, replaced Anania.
Since then, I’ve been growing increasingly more agitated with Fredi and cultural differences in parenting styles. I share a duplex with Tina and Fredi, where we have our own separate spaces and don’t share a common room. Tina and Fredi spend a lot of time in the kitchen where they use the fireplace to keep warm during the cold months and evenings. There are two kitchens in the complex. One kitchen which is its own building removed from the duplex and a second kitchen which is an extension of the duplex. When Tina and Fredi first arrived, they continued using the kitchen that was removed from the duplex. However, in June they changed to using the kitchen which is an extension of a house. The extension happens to be adjacent to my bedroom window. I spend much of my time in my bedroom since my cell service does not work anywhere else in my house.
This change in kitchens is when the issue started impacting aspects of my daily life. Fredi is around 2 years old, and I believe has separation anxiety. Tina leaves him alone in the room often to grab things around the complex like dishes for cooking, wood for the fire, basins for washing dishes, or water. When she leaves, Fredi begins to wail since he cannot follow her. The kitchen has a series of 3 steps leading up to it and Fredi is too small to climb up or down the steps quickly. When Tina leaves him, he stands at the doorway and cries until she returns. This happens frequently. She’ll leave alone for a few minutes every 20 to 30 minutes from around 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. Having this go on daily for months has been very annoying to deal with and quite distressing to me.
I have tried to kindly request the neighbors to slightly change their behavior like using other parts of the courtyard that aren’t surrounding my bedroom, but they didn’t seem willing to change. I’ve been trying to be mindful of the cultural differences or to adjust the change in lifestyle by practicing methods of destressing like listening to music to block the noise out. I’ve even tried to remove myself from the situation and going on walks in the village or eating dinner at my friends’ houses in the village. I know myself and I know how I react to stressors, and I’ve left this stress build up inside of me too long. Now, every time I hear him whether he is crying or just giggling my anxiety skyrockets. One thing I learned about myself back during my pre-service training and living with the host family was that I need my own space and quiet to decompress myself from a stressful day. I haven’t had a quiet evening at home in months, and I haven’t been able to fully relax.
There is much more of a community raising philosophy here where moms will leave their children with most people with no concern. At the beginning, Tina had this expectation that I would look after Fredi when he was playing in the yard while I was doing chores. I didn’t mind at first since he mostly just watched me, but one day he wanted to start “help” me by throwing leaves, candy, and other things in my buckets for cleaning. I had told him to stop multiple times and asked Tina to watch him so he would stop. She did not help me at all; she would stop watching him and just kept messing around on her phone. I pushed back on this behavior, and I set the boundary that I didn’t want him around me during chores anymore and Tina was annoyed with me for a week or so. She didn’t greet me or acknowledge me for a whole week. That didn’t feel great, because she is my neighbor and I felt like I was being punished for not wanting to supervise Fredi.
I am conflicted because I have sympathy for her since my mom was also a single mom. I can see that it is challenging to work a job while trying to raise a toddler at the same time. But I’ve tried to accommodate as much as I can. I’ve changed many aspects of my daily life to adjust to their lifestyle and cannot change anymore.
December update: I wrote this post right before the national election on October 29th which did not go well in Tanzania. Many people rioted about a lack of democracy and the government reacted harshly. Jailing and killing innocent Tanzanians. The government turned the internet off for a whole week, I could only communicate with people through text messages or phone calls. Due to this political unrest, there was suspicions of large protests on December 9th, Tanzania’s Independence Day, and my fellow volunteers and I were evacuated to South Africa for two weeks. I have not seen the results of my students’ scores, but I did get some messages from my fellow teachers while I was in South Africa asking me about how much content I taught implying the tests did not go well… On a lighter note, right before we were evacuated, I was able to remedy the issue with my housing situation. I had tried my best to resolve the issue with my neighbors, but they were not understanding or accommodating. Eventually, I called my Peace Corps supervisors to help me with this issue and since middle of November they have stopped using the kitchen next to my bedroom window. I’m not bothered by the noise at night anymore and I am able to decompress in the evenings again. Something that I hadn’t mentioned in October, which was impacting my work was the government shutdown. Since Trump’s administration has taken office, we’ve had many directives changing the focus of our service. In February and March, we were told we could not conduct certain programs that supported people living with HIV like grassroots soccer which teaches students about HIV in fun active ways. We were then told we couldn’t get grant money for projects related to HIV awareness and support. And when I was preparing to submit my grant to raise money for building a new kitchen at my school, the US government closed for a month and we’re not able to submit grants. Then we were evacuated from Tanzania with all grants paused. Many of my friends who applied for grants earlier than me and just got their grant money and were unable to use it in November. I’m glad that I’m having time to relax and recharge after the last few months which were very hectic and unpredictable.
