So it begins…
I started my teaching job on Tuesday 31st May 2005, the day after the interview. I was shown to the computer lab, a large, though modest room with 13 working PCs, each running Windows 95, except 2 that ran Windows 3.1.
Task 1
My first task was to do an audit and see which PCs were working and what needed to be done about those that weren’t.
“Are you kiddin’ me? We ain’t gettin rid of nothin… I’m gonna fix ‘em!” I said to myself after Sr. Odette told me to decide if we should get rid of the ones I determine to be bad. There was no way I was going to dispose of them. I mean, I had just gotten my first formal job after nearly 2 years of hustling, fixing computers and stuff. I had to prove that I was worth the K760.00 I was being offered, not just by teaching, but by putting my PC support skills to use. I failed to fix 2 of the 5 that weren’t working. But we didn’t get rid of them. I stripped them, harvesting their parts and putting them on display, well labelled. They were going to be useful when teaching the older pupils PC support. See, this brain works! And then I managed to get Windows XP to install on the PC I was going to be using, after doubling its memory to 128MB with a memory stick that my friend donated to me. I retained the 4GB hard drive with the approximately 50 classic Bemba Catholic songs.
Task 2
My second task was to come up with a curriculum that was meaningful. I had promised in the interview that I could teach content that would be useful to pupils. I was 20 years old, going on 21, I had limited patience, I had never been to teaching college, and I referred to children as “little humans”, and now I had the task of teaching all pupils (Grade 1 to Grade 12), plus fellow teachers, and the sisters. I needed to devise a syllabus. Actually, there was already a syllabus, except that it needed a bit more depth added to it.
In the existing curriculum, the primary school humans, er… um… pupils, learned MS Paint, MS Word and MS Publisher. I left that like that, though I added stuff like Keyboard Shortcuts and Tips, Tricks and Hacks for the older kids (Grade 5 to 7).
I’ve always believed deep down that the brains of secondary school pupils aren’t given enough credit. I decided I was going to teach these pupils college-level material because I know they could grasp. At that time, only 4 schools in Zambia conducted Examinations Council of Zambia (ECZ) Computer Studies exams, which involved programming. I had learnt programming in secondary school and so I decided I was going to teach it to students from Grade 10 to 12. That was going to kill 2 birds with one stone:
- Prepare the school for the ECZ syllabus
- Equip pupils with skills that could potentially help them make a living beyond Grade 12 if they weren’t able to get into college immediately
So the Junior Secondary School Computer curriculum, as devised by me, covered the International Computer Driving Licence (ICDL) syllabus: Basic IT Concepts, Using Windows and Managing Files, and MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Publisher).
The Senior Secondary School Computer curriculum, as devised by me, covered PC Support, Web Design Basics with HTML and CSS, and Programming in Visual Basic for Applications. This way, by the time pupils graduated high school, they could do projects on their own, like fixing people’s PCs. Also, it was intended to be a springboard for those that would want to do computer-related courses in college.
As expected, it wasn’t easy. I didn’t have enough patience to deal with all the little humans, and I didn’t have all the skills to teach teenagers. It was hard, but also a good opportunity to start developing patience. It was also a good way to learn to relate with adolescents, getting to understand their day-to-day challenges. This cause was furthered by my becoming sports master at the start of 2016.
Task 3
I was the youngest member of staff. Some pupils were is little as 3 years younger than me, and I even schooled with some of them in primary school and others in secondary school. And the headboy was older than me. My being young and all made the rest of the staff think I was hip and happening. Plus I had come with a bunch of ideas for sports, particularly soccer and athletics. Because of this I was appointed sports master and head of the recreation committee.
The FASH
Now I realise that pupils spend the bulk of their time at school, so I made it a point to make sure they would get to enjoy themselves, apart from learning. Introducing the FASH. The Football Association of Sacred Heart (FASH) was the in-school organisation that I set up with some pupils that lived and breathed soccer. The organisation’s mandate was to make soccer exciting. We allowed pupils to buy and sell players and we gave awards of different kinds, thus making soccer just as important a recreational activity as braiis and pageants.
Innovation
“We need to try out this payroll system,” said Sr. Edith, the school accountant and good friend of mine. A well-known Zambian software development firm dropped by to show us their flagship payroll system. We sampled it. It crashed 3 times during the demo. I wasn’t impressed. Okay fine, I was impressed. But not enough to overcome the temptation to build my system. So I enlisted the brains of one of my most brilliant students. She was quite a programmer. Yes, she. Introducing Bwalya Mulenga. If I remember correctly, her lowest exam score in the 3 years I taught her was 90%. I used some of her ideas to build the school a payroll system, saving them K3,500.00 (rebased). These days, Mulenga wears a counsel’s white wig. If she hadn’t taken those brains to the bar, she would probably be spending time in the air-conditioned cubicles, writing binaries for Google or Facebook.
I was tired of marking exam answer scripts. Plus I had to help all the teachers in the school to prepare their mark schedules in readiness for open day each term. It was too much work. I had to devise a system. It took a weekend to develop a computer-based examining system for computer theory exams. So starting from January 2008, all pupils sitting for theory exams got their results as soon as they submitted their electronic paper.
I’m not a Teacher
It’s now 2009 and if there’s one thing I’ve learnt on this job, it’s that teaching is far from easy. But I’ve weathered the storm for more than 4 years and I’ve developed some patience. I’m not learning new stuff anymore and the modest computer lab doesn’t provide much depth. My career needs a jolt. I haven’t yet made it in life, but I’ve introduced electronic systems at the school, I’ve set standards as far as making different publications is concerned, and I’ve established a soccer association. Besides that, I have helped the school and some of its neighbours in both Chingola and Chililabombwe Districts to deploy the ECZ’s newly developed Electronic Candidate Registration System (ECRS). It’s time I left. But I’ve got unfinished business.
End of the SHCS Adventure
26th August 2009 was the date on my resignation letter. In the previous week, I was low and frustrated. As if I thought I was ready I decided to put together my CV and the certificate I had acquired from a free 3-day training course. That was the week Emmanuel, now popularly known as Guru and plying his trade as a network administrator in Lusaka advised me to apply for a position at Spencon Polyphase Zambia Limited, an engineering company in the Zambia Police area of Lilayi. Guru arranged the interview. I got the job. I headed back to Chingola to resign. I nearly changed my mind when Sr. Martha showed her sadness about my decision to leave. I assured her that I wasn’t unhappy about working at Sacred Heart Convent School. “I just need to do this for my career,” I said to her, with all the gentleness I could muster. But I still had a task:
As part of the plan to improve the computer lab, I had arranged to have the school buy low cost PCs that had at least the minimum specifications to teach and conduct ECZ Computer Studies exams. Well the consignment was in. There was no way I was going to leave without setting up the lab. After all, improving the lab was my brainchild and renovations had already begun. I had 30 PCs to set up in 2 days. I left a happy man at 18:30hrs on Thursday 27th August 2009 after commissioning the 30 PCs.
