Getting Schooled

When I was in school, we had one bell to tell us it was time for school to start, and one to tell us we were late if we weren’t in homeroom yet. At our village in PNG, the first bell rang around 6:15 to tell students it was time to start getting ready for school! Later (at different times each day), a second bell rang to say it was time to walk to school, and a third chimed at 8 to indicate school was starting.

Our village was lucky to have both an elementary (K-2) school and a primary (3-8) school. Many villages have neither, and their children walk to the closest village that has a school. Once they reached high school age, most students from our village either commuted about 45 minutes by bus or studied as boarding students at the high school on the island that was visible from the beach. There are only three or four high schools in the entire province we were located in, although students in PNG can choose to go to any school they want, in any province.

Since Eric and I are teachers, the headmaster at the primary school invited us to come visit for a day. School began with assembly, which takes place outside. (Fortunately, it usually only rained in the afternoons and evenings!) All the students lined up according to grade levels and recited the school pledge together, sang the PNG anthem, and sang a few worship songs led by the headmaster and some of the older students. The headmaster intended for us to address everyone during assembly, but he decided it was too hot and the kids were too antsy, so instead he had us visit each classroom individually.

For each grade, there were two classes (3A and 3B, and so on), and each grade is housed in a separate building divided down the middle to create two rooms. From grade 3 up, education in PNG is conducted in English, though quite a bit of Tok Pisin is mixed in. We introduced ourselves in English and then had a Q&A time in Tok Pisin with each class. The questions we received ranged from, “What kind of classes do you teach in America?” to, “Do you know if Rambo is still alive?