Teaching
First blog, two and half months into trip. I'll just get straight to it, I presume I can edit this later...
Today I made posters with class 6A and 7. By having only limited materials glue and scissors i hoped to engender cooperation and communication in English. I even wrote 'cooperation' on the blackboard and checked they knew what it meant before we started. Instead, it ended up with mild chaos and fighting over paper and glue. The posters were not all that pretty. I had offered pretty stickers to those who spoke english and cooperated as an incentive and not to those speaking Nepali. Some, rather than risk speak english were just stonily silent. Others, in the hope of getting equipment and stickers gratuitously and constantly complimented me 'oh michael, you are so kind.', 'michael teacher, you are so handsome' etc. Of course, I was immune to this ....
posted by Miguel @ 3:45 am
2 Comments:
It also shows the dubious effects of education on economic activity. Without sufficient productive oppotunities (glue etc) the children were forced to rent seek (suck up). Although better knowledge of English may have helped the ones able to work out how to say 'Michael is a lovely guy' gain more stickers it is unlikely that this type of personal enrichment leads to an optimal outcome for society. Thus education alone cannot be a magic bullet. (and thankfully I never need ever write another macro growth essay again).
Just quickly must mention that I am incredibly excited by the fact that people have 'commented' (and somewhat philosophically/ economically) on my blog, thankyou commentators - I didn't know you could do this. And mum, thanks but i think I have enough stickers still.
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