Theodor Vestal East Africa Division, Peace Corps
Washington, D. C.
Teaching Chemistry in the Peace Corps
This nation's youth, though burdened with the easy stereotype-label of the Silent Generation throughout the late 19501s, responded enthusiastically to the trial balloon proposed in 1960 by Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy: that a Peace Corps of dedicated young Americans be sent overseas to assist needy nations in meeting their skilled manpower r e quirements. The Silent Generation was replaced by the Dedicated Generation, who voiced their approval in letters, volunteering their services in the cause of peace. After the 1960 election, President Kennedy sent hi brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, on a trip around the world to determine whether there was a demand for the type of volunteers he envisioned. The response in every country visited was positive, and on March 1, 1961, by Executive Order, the Peace Corps came into existence. The work began in two rooms of a Washington hotel, plans for the new organization of Volunteers were consolidated, and after Congressional approval was achieved on September 22, 1961, the first Volunteers started work abroad as teachers in Ghana. In officially establishing the Peace Corps, Congress in effect called for a new kind of American to be sent overseas. The aims of the Peace Corps were clearly and precisely announced by Congress: F i s t , to provide to "interested countries" Volunteers "qualiied" for service ahmad and willimg to serve, "under conditions of hardship if necessary," to help the peoples of these nations meet their needs for trained manpower. Secondly, to help "promote a better understanding of the American people on the part of the people served." And lastly, to help provide a "better understanding of other peoples on the part of the American people." Today, there are 10,000 Volunteers with a variety of skills serving abroad in 46 countries; many of them, such as medical team members, geologists, and university teachers, have had considerable formal educ* tion. Others, such as those working in community development projects, may have little special technical training in their work; but those jobs rely more heavily upon the individual's creativity and initiative. These dedicated men and women have proved the skeptics to be wrong. They have sunrived cultural shock, revolution, dysentery, and boredom; instead of complicating political situations, the Peace Corps Volunteers have remained in countries at crisis periods
when all other American officials have been withdrawn. Of the 10,000 Volunteers currently serving overseas, approximately 60 per cent are teachers. Of these, 300 are instructing chemistry and/or general science from the elementary school level through the university level. All of our teaching Volunteers are required to have at least a Bachelor's degree. Many have had further training-about 600 have Master's degrees and 90 have PhD's or comparable advanced professional degrees. The demand for science teachers in the emerging countries is far greater than the supply.' Many requests for teachers of chemistry and other critical skills go unfilled because of a scarcity of appropriately trained applicants. Even our best trained people, however, have much to learn from other societies. I n the emerging countries of the world, economic, social, and political development is dependent, in large measure, on the development of skilled manpower and an educated populace. Volunteer teachers contribute greatly to the effort of the emerging nations to extend educational opportunities for their people. In many of the countries where the Peace Corps operates, few of the host country teachers have college degrees, and many of these are not native to the host country. The shortage of qualiied teachers becomes more critical every year as the population of these countries increases. Peace Corps teachers are needed to help in all phases of education: to provide staff for schools being opened by the governments; to release host country teachers for further study; and to train future teachers, thus building a reservoir of trained host country instructors. Peace Corps teachers work under the direct supervision of the deans or principals of the schools to which they are assigned. In every school where Volunteers teach, they work with host country teachers-exchanging information and ideas and working together to better the educational system.
Presented as part of the Symposium on International Chemical Educational Activities before the Division of Chemical Educe tion at the 146th Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Philadelphia, Pa., April 1964.
Obviously, not only recent college graduates feel a dedication to the Pesee Corps. Pictured on page 580 are Volunteer Virgil Payne and an attentive student in Nigeria. The photograph is printed by permission of the Peace Corps.
I See generally, MEERICK, PAULD., J. C ~ E MEnnc., . 39, 382 (1962).
The cover The two absorbed young ladies are high school students from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, doing lab work at the Escuels. Francisco Morasitn under the direction of Dr. Mesias Huminga Ricci. The photograph was provided by Professor Josh G6mea-Ihafiez.
Volume 4 1 , Number 1 1 , November 1964
/
581
The Volunteers are responsible for all tasks normally assigned to classroom teachers, such as preparing lesson plans, grading examinations, and holding conferences with students. They also participate in extra-curricular activities by coaching sports, managing libraries, and directing choral organizations and dramatics groups. During school vacations, Volunteers have worked on such varied projects as house and school building, teacher-training programs, and social welfare projects. Many of our Peace Corps teachers are working with a curriculum patterned on the "English System." Each course is defined by a syllabus, which specifies the topics to be studied in much the same manner as course descriptions in American college catalogues. A student's grade for a course is almost completely determined by his performance on an examination given a t the end of the year. The extreme importance attached to these examinations tends to make students devote much of their time to maximizing their grades on these exams. Unfortunately, maximizing their grades does not necessarily mean enhancing their understanding of the subject. Classes are sometimes no more than sessions in which pat summaries of the material outlined by the syllabus are dictated to the students who then do their best to commit them to memory and reproduce them on the exam. Since hard work is more productive of good examination marks when it is done close to examination time, most students conserve their energy during the early part of the year so they can make one Herculean study drive at the end. The teachers who "give the best notes" are often considered the most able, and discussion of material outside the syllabus is not always warmly received. I n fact the credo of students in Liberia according to one Volunteer is: "Fact, fact, fact, spit it back." Facilities for teaching chemistry in the Volunteers' schools vary from some comparable to ours in the United States to others which require improvisation on the part of the teacher. I n some instances there are new buildings, but they contain only limited amounts of equipment. Many schools have no running water, which necessitates frequent exercise on the part of the school's bucket brigade. I n Nigeria, a typical secondary school chemical laboratory is described by a Volunteer as having three long wooden tables with stools around for 40 students. Bunsen burners operate from a portable gas cylinder. There are a few balances, a fair supply of chemicals, a blackboard, plenty of chalk, and that's all. I n one Pakistani girls' high school the students sit on stools but have no writing surface for note-taking. Small kerosene lamps are used instead of Bunsen burners. I n a Nigerian school where lab furnishings were missing, a Volunteer built (with student assistance) lab tables, a demonstration-lecture bench, and equipment cabinets during hi vacation. The Monsanto Chemical Corporation supplied that teacher with a large supply of desparately-needed lab equipment. A private citizen, Dr. Loran Giddings of Washington, D.C., donated his chemical laboratory worth several thousand dollars to Volunteer chemistry teachers in Sierra Leone. I n Nyasaland some Volunteers found
582
/
Journal of Chemical Educafion
chemicals, glassware, and textbooks in short supply; all of these commodities are difficult to improvise. But despite the shortcomings of the physical facilities, Peace Corps teachers have succeeded in their assignments so well that additional Volunteers have been requested by the governments of all the countries where the Peace Corps has projects-and this includes Ghana and Indonesia, which have not been noted for a charitable attitude toward the West. Improvisation and creativity have been the keys to Peace Corps success, and success is the proper word to use in speaking of our Volunteers. For instance, Peru's President Belaunde awarded Peace Corps Volunteers in Arequipa the city's silver medal for public service last year. Perhaps the greatest public honor yet bestowed upon the Peace Corps was the Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding, sometimes called the "Nobel Prize of Asia." This was given last autumn to the Peace Corps Volunteers in 11 Asian countriesthe first time the award had ever been given to a non-Asian. If the success of the Peace Corps has been great in the eyes of the governments, the real triumph has been with the people. I n the University of Nigeria, Margery hlichelmore's famous postcard incident generated "suspicion" and "ill feeling." But two years later as the original Volunteers in that group left Nigeria, the student newspaper stated that "no amount of praise showered on them for their work is too much," and today there are almost 500 Peace Corps teachers serving in Nigeria. Indeed, the slogan "Yankee Go Home" has been replaced by "Send us more Peace Corps Volunteers." I must take this opportunity to make the same a p peal to the American Chemical Society--send us more Peace Corps Volunteers! We need qualified chemists and chemical engineers to teach their specialties in the universities and secondary schools of Latin America, Africa, and Asia. We need your support and understanding of what the Peace Corps really is and what it is accomplishing. We need men and women from all walks of life, with warm hearts and tough hides, who are willing to join the ranks of the "new American overseas" and to show, in the words of historian Arnold Toynbee, to "the non-Western majority of mankind ...a sample of Western man at his best." Faith in democracy, the belief in a civilization based on the dignity of the individual human being, the readiness to sacrifice to enable such a civilization to live and grow-these are important values to Western man, and these are the core of the idealism behind the Peace Corps. Perhaps this idealism was best expressed by a 23-year old Volunteer who died in the line of duty. Just before he was killed in a plane crash in Columbia, David Crozier wrote to his parents: "Should it come to it, I had rather give my life trying to help someone than to give my life looking down a gun barrel at then^." As Tinw magazine has noted: "Looking down a gun barrel is sometimes necessary. But the Peace Corps has at least started to make helping people and furthering world peace and understanding a practical alternative."
