Training of Teachers in Shianda Schools

January 03, 2019

Training of Teachers in Shianda Schools

Happy New Year !

I intended on posting an article about the work being done with teachers in different schools around Shianda for a while, so here it is !

One of my first and most important tasks was to implement trainings designed for local teachers, based on their needs and observations from the classrooms. I had the occasion to sit and observe many different lessons in different schools, giving me a nice scope of practices and customs here in Western Kenya.

There are many different areas that could be covered in terms of teaching development and school environment, so we picked topics that would be most immediately beneficial for schools, teachers and students.

Some of the topics chosen were :

- Safer school environment based on the Child-Friendly School approach

- Maximizing student engagement with Inclusive Education and Active Learning

The first topic is based on UNICEF's child-friendly school initiative; the program contains different guidelines and topics, but after witnessing some violence-related incidents at school, I decided to focus on "creating a safe learning environment", including gender-based violence (GBV), health issues, and developing child confidence.

This topic is to be handled cautiously and bearing in mind the cultural gap. Although corporal punishment is illegal in Kenya, it is still frequent and completely accepted in schools. I wrote an article on the subject previously (link here), and I am still in the process of figuring out how to efficiently communicate with teachers and reach them on this subject. Most of the time, I come across arguments like “you don’t understand, African children are not like European children, they only understand the beating” or “our teachers did it to us so it’s only normal we do it to them”. Those arguments are so strongly believed by local communities, it is hard to do anything about it.

However, Safe School Environment principles don’t revolve solely around GBV. Schools are usually quite aware of recommendations, although they are sometimes hard to put in place. For example, a Child-friendly School would require separate single-sex toilets for hygiene and girl protection; most schools can barely afford to build enough toilets for all the students, so the idea is appealing yet unrealistic. School funding in Kenya is to say the least complicated; parents pay school fees, and there is little financial help from the government. Schools are also be supported by donors, most commonly churches. Upgrades and improvements largely depend on donations, which of course do not come regularly and in large quantities. Hence a lot of recommendation that are purely material, like separate toilets, can take some time to put in place.

The second topic focuses on methodology and pedagogical development; from my observation, Kenyan schools are mostly using lectures and teacher-driven lessons as a pedagogical approach. There is no or few time given to self-reflection, thinking and understanding, rather repeating and learning by heart. Students rarely work in groups or pairs, limiting brainstorm and assimilation.

Studies on education and learning process show that the information assimilated by actually thinking and understanding is 3 times more likely to be remembered on the long term. Active learning helps with memorizing and deeper understanding of material, as students are engaging with the content rather than simply listening and repeating it.

It was honestly a challenging issue to tackle. Most teachers here agree that the Kenyan curriculum and methodology is based on lecturing, but they don't necessarily see the problem with that. Without understanding why lecturing and one-way teaching is not the most efficient way for students to gain and retain knowledge, it is therefore complicated to understand the importance of engaging students. At first they mostly see the challenges; loosing class control, loosing time, having to prepare a lesson plan... Most reservations are true. Without proper preparation and planning, engaging in active learning is most likely going to lead to class disruption. Especially when, like in Kenya, classes are actually made of 70 to 100 students ! Loosing control of a class of 100 students is litteraly every teacher’s nightmare.

When I started the trainings, I didn’t expect so much reservation, rather ignorance about this new methodology (very condescending of me). So when I realized that teachers were well aware of such methods, just didn’t see the importance of implementing it, I had to rethink my training and work harder on finding practical solutions that could fit every classroom. Turns out, solutions came from the teachers. By conducting think tanks and brainstorming during the trainings, I had the pleasure of seeing the beginning of a change in the mindset. We agreed that that conducting lessons 100% in active learning is not going to work, because the curriculum and classroom configuration won’t allow it. So we worked around that to define a range of specific activities, lesson planning and methods that could be practically implemented in their everyday teaching. Obviously, one training is not going to change their approach entirely, but it's a first step.

Overall, conducting such trainings is an incredibly interesting and humbling experience, as I got to exchange and share ideas with school staff, which necessarily lead to rethinking some of my European principles. As teachers, we are always in a learning process, and these trainings are definitely as much as a learning experience for my teachers as it is for me.

Happy New Year !