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Ugandan School Trip - GA Magazine Spring 2006
Valerie Klein, a language teacher from St Helen’s School in Norwood spent her October half-term in a Ugandan school together with eight other teachers throughout the UK as part of Education Action’s Insight Programme. Her diary extracts reveal a journey of discovery and amazement at the progress being made in some of the country’s most remote rural communities.
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This is it! Two minibuses dodge the potholes on the way to the school in Bugiri where I will be spending the next three days. The schools are supported by LABE (Literacy and Adult Basic Education), a local partner organisation of Education Action that aims to improve literacy and numeracy levels in the poorest districts of Uganda. We are greeted by hundreds of children all wearing immaculate, brightly coloured uniforms and performing traditional singing and dancing.
I am overwhelmed by the size of the classes - 120 children crammed on benches from the ages of 5 to 10. The atmosphere is one of motivation and enthusiasm, and most importantly a desire to learn. Pupils take pride in their work and display a beaming smile when they get the answer right.
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Today I am spending time in a joint parent and child class – part of the Family Basic Education (FABE) project run by LABE. 30 families are crammed on the benches of a small classroom and small babies are asleep on the floor while their mothers learn. I sit down with Monique and John, my Ugandan colleagues, to prepare a lesson for tomorrow's joint adult and child class. We start by stating our aims and objectives for our lesson on the Basic Needs of Human Beings and discuss a variety of teaching methods
Unlike us, the teachers here are extremely successful at making the most of the limited resources. The difficult circumstances and the FABE project have turned them into very resourceful and creative people who really bring the teaching and learning alive. I am looking forward to teaching the FABE class tomorrow but I also wonder how best to teach 130 people from the ages of five to 70, with only the help of a translator.
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Our lessons are about to start. I feel a mixture of excitement and apprehension when I see more and more families piling into the small classroom. To keep up levels of interest and concentration, lessons are interspersed with energising songs. I begin with 'La Bamba' in Spanish. An odd choice perhaps, but my Ugandan colleagues are very enthusiastic with the suggestion so I go with the flow. Our class immediately gets into the Spanish rhythm and singing and we have an amazing dance! My colleagues and I have planned our lessons on topics relevant to everyday life here - making natural fertilizer, the water cycle and healthy eating - part of the FABE curriculum that make it so popular with the adults.
The lesson is an extremely enriching experience for me. Not only am I teaching, I also feel I am learning so much from this way of teaching. I am anxious to be able to communicate my experiences to my school and other educational organisations in the UK. When lessons are officially over, the school holds a leaving ceremony for us. It has been an incredible experience for all of us. We do not leave before a good few hours of speeches, dancing, gift exchanges and tree planting in our honour. It is a moving goodbye and we are holding back the tears as we depart.
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On my journey home I have some time to reflect on my memorable and unique experiences of the week. I feel truly privileged to have been at the heart of a 'real' learning experience where the teachers love to teach and the pupils love to learn. The essence of education.
Most importantly I have learnt that the idea of parents feeling at home in the schools means the schools themselves become the focal points for the whole community and are improving everything from hygiene and nutrition to gender relations. The parents were keen to point this out in a play at one of the leaving ceremonies - they showed how it has completely cut down levels of domestic violence and alcoholism and made gender relations between men and women much more equal. Thanks to FABE, these communities are reaping the benefits far beyond simply learning to read and write. Despite some of the worst poverty levels in the country, children, parents and teachers are now empowered and planning for their future.
You can find out more about the Insight programme on the Education Action website. |
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