First Class

I went to Tumaini on Thursday to sit in on a Java Object Oriented Programming class. The instructor is a visiting professor from Finland who has been teaching several courses the first semester. There are three class years in the IT program with 28 – 30 students in each year so class size is less than 30. They use a projector from a laptop projecting on a wall in the computer room for this class and also have a pad of paper, like the post it board paper but without adhesive. It looks like other classrooms use a blackboard. The students were very attentive, although Tomi said that the programming courses have been hard for the students because they are typically coming into the program with little computer experience and no programming experience. In class they were going over a programming assignment that the students had done in groups. Tomi said that the groups really work well together with students helping teach each other. He grades on individual exams however. This appears to be part of the social culture in Africa. People help each other a lot, perhaps because conditions have been historically difficult and that is a way for people to survive. One example of this social cooperation is on the highways. When you approach a slower moving vehicle they will turn on their right turn signal if it is not safe to pass (driving on the left so a right turn signal is towards oncoming traffic) and their left turn signal when it is safe. Another example on the highway is when oncoming cars signal you that there is a police checkpoint ahead by waving their arms for you to slow down. They don’t know you and they don’t have to do that but they do. Tomorrow I will finally get some pictures uploaded. Here is one of the apartment building we are staying in, it is as nice as it looks. They are still working on our longer term location.