THE FUTURE IS REALLY NOT AS BLEAK AS I HAD IMAGINED IT TO BE

Two weeks ago, my blog mainly concentrated on my moments of contemplation as I taught the preschoolers at the Golang crèche and the grade-two students at the School. However, on Wednesday 20^th, I concluded that there lied a possibility in some of my contemplation-related questions being answered. And the answered were positive.

The Grade two students seemed calmer than usual when we begun our lesson for the day on math numeracy. It was therefore easier to get their attention. However, their calm nature did intrigue me quite a great deal. My team mates were surprised too but none dared not to say a word lest things turned around. 

As usual, we split up into groups and handed out the math work sheets. We watched as the pupils leaned over to see each other’s work sheets and complain on the fact that their work sheets were different from one another. They did not recognize or even think for a minute that we had differed the math problems on each paper deliberately. A few weeks ago, we noticed that the pupils would copy from each other and lie of the fact that they had authentically solved each questions. Hence after studying this child psychology and in a bid to prevent copying, we had outsmarted them and varied the questions on each paper. They were forced to work individually.

My group of students had two extremely smart children that answered the fifteen two digit additional questions in 20 minutes. I must mention that they were both female. It was my first impulse before I decided to be gender-sensitive. I did not guide or even instruct the two on a one- on-one basis but they were able to finish the math questions on time.

 

I then reminisced on my last week contemplation on the matter of the foundation of education the children at the community school received and came to a conclusion that maybe, it was not as bad as I made it appear. After the lesson, I took the two girls aside and questioned them on their prospects and aspirations of the future and how they viewed education. These two eight year old girls said, and I quote, “ Math is simply adding 1 on 1. In future I want to be a doctor” said one and “I want to be a nurse,” said the other. At that instance, my heart leaped for joy. Not because of their aspirations nor because they got the math questions right but rather because I could see that these two girls had been exposed to the opportunities that may lie available for them in future.

I cannot also forget to mention Johannes. He too was very keen on his work. He progressed very carefully and always revised every question he did before moving on to the next. The first time we, the Golang Creche team, asked him what he is interested in, education was the least of his worries. He wanted to be a stealer as he thought that this so called ‘profession’ was classic and showed how much power one has. Looking at  him  do his work so diligently, I doubted the thought process that led him to conclude that he would be best suited to steal from people. I however remembered never to judge a book by its cover maybe in this case by its Math skills!Time ran out before he could finish the last to questions and I saw the anger in him when I had to take the paper away from him. “I have not finished!” he insisted. A great sign that he cared about the work he was doing, and a sure indication that education was not the least of his concerns anymore. I did not interpret his eagerness to finish the questions in any other way. 

These two incidents pointed out to me that the future is not really pitch black or ebony. Maybe just grey and cloudy. But in the same way that every cloud has a silver lining, I believed that every grade two student had hope in them. How this potential is harnessed and used will determine how shiny their silver lustre will be.

With the preschoolers whom we conducted a fun activity of coloring the sun, I was struck by the creative color designs that originated from them. They colored the rays of the sun as yellow, coated them with a bit of orange and did not forget to have a blue background. I saw artists among them; children whose right hemisphere of their brain was quite talented.

 
But most importantly, I questioned the perspective in which these children viewed the world in a way that the sun can emit blue, red, orange and yellow rays. I chose to think of these colors as the different interests each child had and the opportunities that could arise from these interests.

At this point where we as the Golang Creche are left with barely a month to impact the lives of these children, we can only aspire that the lesson plans we have put in place will be enough to not only tap the potential that lies within both the preschoolers and Grade ones but also to make them steer into the future knowing of their interests, abilities and opportunities that lie for them to having nothing close to a bleak future. 

 By: Teacher Wambui Mburu

CONTEMPLATION

Story By: Wambui Mburu

 Being an effective educator is not an easy vocation. When factors of environment and background come into play, most educators find it challenging to draw the line. Last week, during the Golang lesson plan session, we found ourselves finding it hard to draw the line. 

The topic of the lesson was to be ‘my home’. Without giving it much thought at first, all the Golang team members were busy preparing how they would teach students at Zandspruit about their home using templates of a mansion. That is a 3 bedroom house all inclusive with a separate lavished bathroom and toilet. Were it not for the team advisor Ms. Trotter, the team would not have realized that this would be an ineffective lesson plan considering that most of the pre-schoolers at the Golang Crèche did not have houses that embodied the model of a 3 bed roomed mansion. We were ignorant in that respect. We therefore changed our lesson plan to fit the environment and surrounding of most of these children.  

 

On arrival at the crèche at around 3pm on Wednesday 13^th February 2013, we began as usual, delivering the lesson to the pre-schoolers. Sylvia begun with a story based on the Bible story of how building a house upon the sand is detrimental while building a house upon rocks is the best way to build houses. During this lesson, I noticed especially one particular smart boy. He offered to sing a song in relation to Sylvia’s story.

“A foolish man built his upon the sand x 2
And the rain came tumbling down.
The rain came down and the flood went up x 4
And the house upon the sand crumbled down.
A wise man built his house upon the rock x 2
A nd the rain came tumbling down!
The rain came down and the flood went up x 4
But the house upon the rock stood firm.”

 

His articulation of every single word especially the words ‘crumbling’ and ‘tumbling’ and proper motion of his hands and legs while singing the song caught me by surprise. For a moment, I began to contemplate about the future of this boy. I wondered if he would have the opportunities to maximize his potential. These remain questions, unanswered.

 

Moving on, after the story from Sylvia and song from Telo we proceeded to the Grade two’s who we also teach. We had planned to teach them how to write, read and pronounce the alphabets. We divided the 40 grade two pupils amongst ourselves before beginning the teaching and gave out the handout sheets that contained the 26 letters of the alphabet. In my small group, I decided to call on each of them to pronounce the alphabets. Once again, here I noticed one particular loud boy, Alun. Being eight years old, his clothes were extremely sandy from playing and rolling on the floor. However, this was not a matter of concern. He struggled to pronounce the alphabets and only got the last 3 of the alphabets, X, Y and Z. he looked quite uneasy and I could see the tears welling up in his eyes. Contrary to his loudness in play, he was very shy in reading.  I called him aside and helped him read the alphabets. While doing so, I remembered the pre-school boy who had sung to well and the issue of the background and foundation of education between these two boys came into question.

At this point, I reminisced on our vision ‘to inspire children from disadvantaged backgrounds to love learning and value education through fun and engaging activities.’ Thus, in order to incorporate a fun activity, I sung a short rhythm to Alun that would help him remember the alphabet. By doing so, I could see him sparkle just a little bit. He was making progress, I was happy.

All in all, as the Golang Crèche team reflected and evaluated their lesson delivery at the end of the lesson, a common theme among all of us was the reality of how a firm foundation in the education of these children was needed in order for us to realize a maximum impact on the education of these children.