A Week in the Field: Getting Schooled

Last week was exhausting, dusty, hot, stressful, and quite amusing.

We, at the MRC,K, have been undergoing a large roll-out of activities under new funding.  We are partnering with another local organization East Africa Quality in Early Learning (EAQEL) – which also falls under the umbrella of the Aga Khan Development Network.   Together they are providing their expertise in teaching and learning methods to ECD centres attached to primary schools and primary schools, in hopes of improving education in rural Kenya.  While EAQEL is focused on the Reading To Learn method (a method I don’t particularly like, but apparently gets results), the MRC,K team is conducting workshops on Active Learning.

A little background info:

- Reading to Learn – It is a method of literacy in which you begin with a larger paragraph, and work your way down to a single word. In essence, it’s a top-down analytical tool to help children understand the context of the language, in all its forms.

- Active Learning – An unfamiliar concept to the Kenyan education system, whereby children learn from their environment.  Classroom materials should be colourful, attractive, and highly visible.  Children should be free to manipulate objects to feel their shape and texture.  Children should be active in their learning through song, dance, and play.  The teacher’s role is to support and facilitate learning - not lecture – while providing an environment that is conducive to active learning.

Participant displays her group work on lesson planning.

Each organization trained trainers (a mix of education officials, primary teachers, and ECD teachers) and we sent them on their merry way to plan and execute a week long training session of their own for local ECD teachers.  My colleague and I happened to be paired with a slightly difficult group.  While I had worked with the facilitators earlier on (conducting a workshop on facilitation skills no less), I was noticing my facilitators were not facilitating: they were being teachers.  We had discussed this in our workshop, and I made it clear to them that facilitators do not lecture, but instead support a group to come to its own ideas and provide suggestions when needed -  much like the Active Learning methodology we were illustrating, and why we were there in the first place.  However, to no avail, a facilitator we had trained took almost 4 hours to deliver a 2 hour session.  This foreshadowed the rest of the day with inactive participants, tired looking facilitators, and a very impatient intern.

Facilitator leads group work.

Learning about Child Development

A sample Lesson Plan

On top of that we discovered various complaints were going around about food provisions (we provided lunch), soda provisions (soda or pop was provided with the lunch), fare provisions (we provided transport fare for participants to reach the workshop), break provisions (we may have lost out on some time for breaks), and materials provisions (we provided markers, scissors, bristol board, yarn, etc).

What also surprised me was our facilitation team, a team of professionals, were just as grumpy. 

I could see this negative energy was feeding throughout the facilitation team, into the participants themselves.  I could only hope things would improve in the coming days.  My colleague and I did our best to encourage and support them during a feedback session at the end of the day.  However, as I said, this was a particularly difficult group.

I didn’t get home until 9 pm that first day.

The 2^nd and 3^rd days were slightly easier and we were finishing up earlier each time (meaning I was getting home by 6 or 7pm). 

On a slight side note, I’ll tell you another story before I finish this one.  I was ‘taking tea’ with an education official (in Kenya you don’t say drinking or eating, you take things.  It still confuses me sometimes).  She was asking about my life in Canada, my family, etc, and I happened to mention that my younger brother was really into Geology.  Her response was, “There are rocks in Canada?”. While I was impressed she understood what Geology was, I was quite taken aback at her question.  I smile, laugh and explain that yes, there are rocks in Canada. She went on, “Are there trees? Are there bushes? This is not how I picture Canada...”    No matter how open and aware I can be,  no matter how many ‘cultural sensitivity’ trainings I attend, no matter how much Swahili I try to learn,  it’s ironic and surprising to me that I found myself explaining to a seemingly highly educated government official that rocks, trees, and bushes exist in a place called Canada.

The final two days of our week in supervising the Active Learning workshop, I was left to my own devices as my colleague took her maternity leave.  I was in charge of providing feedback, supporting the facilitation team, doling out fare reimbursements, and fielding concerns, questions, and complaints.

Participants preparing materials for Active Learning classroom.

Materials on display (notice they are locally available: stones, coconut shells, sticks, and bottle tops.)

I learned that no matter how much you give, in terms of materials, food, sodas, and money for transit – people will always want more.  I don’t know if it’s a result of handouts – a symptom of International Aid - or if it’s a testament to the realities of poverty in rural Kenya – with rising food and gas prices - or simply a mode of survival in a country where social welfare, social security, and good governance barely exist. 

It’s interesting to me, after all these years of academic study on International Development, Capacity Building, and Foreign Aid, that – in terms of educational development - it all comes down to training and how that training is actually implemented.  So really, it all comes down to individual choice.  I am interested to see in the coming weeks when we do mentoring and support visits to these schools, if these teachers are beginning to use Active Learning methods in their classrooms.  It would be more interesting to see if our team of facilitators will also use these tools.

I also learned that my trusty thesis advisor and grad school mentor fully prepared me for dealing with aggressive individuals and managing conflict. (Thank you, Jim!)

I learned that your health can quickly deteriorate under stressful, hot, humid, and dusty conditions. 

And, that while there may be people in Canada who believe that Africa is one whole country, without cars and electricity, with people dancing around in loin cloths beside mud huts – well you can only imagine how some Africans may picture Canada.