i went there because a few weeks earlier a friend who created a charter school in my old neighborhood in boston told me about her trip to malawi. she visited schools there and asked teachers what they needed most. i guessed paper, pencils. no. the deprivation level in malawi defies our untrained imaginations. you have to think even more elemental than paper and pencils. where would the kids put the paper and pencils if they don't have desks? no desks. not one. no desks for students or teachers in any of the schools my friend visited. this is what going to school in malawi looks like. in most schools, the kids are sitting on dirt floors. in the better schools they sit on cracked cement floors. seven hours a day. and the teachers stand on those