Six girls graduated from high school in 2005, two in 2006 and nine more in January 2007. There is a year between high school graduation and college entrance and during that year the graduates become interns. First they assist teachers at Topride Academy, a good school with a fine staff that 150 of the BEADS student attend. From January through March they learn how to teach in classes from nursery through Class 8. Then these interns go out to teach for one year in one of 3 schools- the town’s public elementary school, or one of two very remote and rudimentary schools.
That’s where I come in. In January 2005, May 2005 and again in January of 2007 I helped train the interns to prepare them for their teaching experience. It is a very exciting and rewarding time. Every day the ten of us met from 9:00 til 5:00 (of course with a break for tea and lunch) to learn various teaching strategies. My efforts are mainly concerned with reading and books. All year I have the exquisite pleasure of choosing and purchasing books for Topride. We now have one of the few lending libraries (5,000 books in an 8’ by 8’ room) in the area. It sounds modest by American standards but, one hour outside of Nairobi at a school with 350 students, it is immense. The parents of many of these students are illiterate. Owning a book, hearing a bed-time story read aloud, or learning to love literature are outside the normal scope. Each time I go, I take 7 or 8 suitcases filled with books. It’s like packing a space ship- each book must be considered carefully for its worth. So many favorites that we grew up with have found their way there: Charlotte’s Web, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Helen Keller’s Teacher, Stone Soup and thousands of others sit on Topride’s newly constructed shelves.
Library Day is really amazing. Long lines of students queue up for their turn- 5 pupils at one time fills the entire library space. Since the children have not had exposure to a wide variety of books, the love of books must be kindled, so we promote some basic principles:
1. Reading aloud (by the teacher) each day.
2. Silent reading by the students each day.
These seem like simple and natural ways to promote reading but they are just taking root.
Now that we have many book series (15 copies of each), they can go into the appropriate classrooms. The interns are taught to appreciate the books during my time with them, so they will know what they have available to use. We practice reading aloud in a way that makes the story come alive; how to share illustrations with the class; how to try to be creative and imaginative. For example, we act out parts of the story: we were bulls and matadors for Ferdinand; cows, sheep and horses for Charlotte’s Web; we used the first felt board ever for Billy Goats Gruff, and pretended to paddle huge Polynesian canoes while surrounded by vicious sharks (a hard concept for students living 1,000 miles from the sea) for Call It Courage. In the evenings, I would show the interns a technique. The next day, these 18-year-olds would try it out in a Topride class and would return by lunch, flushed with success: “They liked it!”, “They understood!”, “They wanted to know if you could really make soup from a stone”. My answer: “Well, let’s try it.” And we did.
When these nine young women go out to the rural schools, some with only mud walls, no desks or blackboards, they will have to use their wits and ingenuity. We tried to enhance these attributes, asking: “What can you do with nothing?” In the large sturdy plastic bags purchased at the Dollar Store here in Newburyport, each of them has their “teacher survival kit”: a pair of scissors, 25 nails, 6 cup hooks, 2 magic markers, 6 pens, an alphabet chart, a precious bar of soap, and their teacher’s notes.
Hopefully, they will be ready. I look forward to getting to know the next group of interns from the graduating class of 2008.
This website was designed by Tatiana Hamboyan Harrison.