Nigerian children are different .......

Last week in Azara I prepared a whole day workshop about classroom management and teaching aids. During the preparations for this workshop it became even clearer to me that there are a lot of cultural influences in how we look at children and their capabilities. I also noticed some of the mistakes I made during my first workshop here in Nigeria in December 2010; I was thinking too much out of my own perspective of what is good teaching and effective learning. During my 7 month here in Nigeria I now learned to look through a Nigeria perspective with my own vision on education. So I can combine my own thoughts with the current situation here. 

I could really notice a difference in interaction between me and the group of teachers that I was trying to reach. I could talk out of my own experiences and from what I have seen during my school visits in the past months. Some of the big differences in my own perspective on teaching and learning and how to react to a adolescent are; 

1. In The Netherlands I would encourage the adolescent to make their own decisions, and let them meet their own mistakes and reflect on that. Here teachers are not yet used to talk to an adolescent like they can make decisions, so they did not learn to coop with the possibility of making decisions.  
2. During the workshop in Azara we were talking about classroom rules and consequences (at least that’s how I introduced the session). Everybody had to list his/her classroom rules and make a list of top 6 consequences. Consequences are called punishment here in Nigeria. Some examples of punishments that are used by teachers in Azara: standing up in the classroom for about 5 minutes, kneeling down in the classroom, turning your face from the board for the rest of the lesson, send out of the classroom, kneeling down outside for 20 minutes, do frog jumping on school premises.  
3.  In The Netherlands we are more and more about involving pupils into the lesson and letting them find out what they need to learn before they can make the next step. Here in Nigeria all the lessons are like lectures without books. All a pupil does is listening. Most of the time the pupils are not allowed to write during the lectures because that will distract him/her. Some other moment in the week the pupils will have to write the notes in their notebooks. The teacher is writing everything on the blackboard without explaining anything because he/she already did that in a previous lesson or will do in a following lesson. During the workshop we had a discussion about evolving skills in the classroom; When do pupils have to learn skills they need to be successful in tertiary education? What are skills they need? Listening and writing at the same time is one of those skills you need to train in the classroom. You can’t just expect them to be there after secondary school. It is the teachers/schools responsibility to know which skills and to teach those skills which pupils need before going to tertiary school. 
4. In The Netherlands child-centered teaching is important and for that classroom shouldn’t be too crowded. A Dutch teacher will start to complain when there are more than 27 pupils in his/her classroom. In some schools maybe already when there are 25 pupils packing your classroom.  Here I introduced activated teaching because classrooms are more often packed with 70 pupils, with which it would be too big a challenge to do real child-centered learning. Activating teaching is about little things you can do to get the pupils more involved during the lessons. Little bit on how to ask real questions to a classroom and how to force pupils to think about an answer. 
5. During teacher training college in The Netherlands you learn a lot about child psychology and sociology and other things you need to understand if you work with other people. I think it is important for a teacher to know with whom he/she has to deal with. But it is maybe more important to recognize the individual pupils in your classroom. I know that I wasn’t the best in learning names by heart, but I always knew particular thing about my pupils, Hobby’s, relations, relatives, anything. During the workshop, but also during other school visits I noticed that a lot of the teachers don’t really know what is going on in the lives of the pupils. It like they don’t seem to care. Everybody needs to act the same and if you act differently teachers don’t know what to do and you will have the change to be hit with a thin branch or ruler. It’s is really sad to see that some adolescents just are exploring (something they need to do) and then been hit with a branch or ruler. Even though corporal punishment is forbidden in Nassarawa State.When I did talk about this with teachers during the workshop they really didn’t know how to act differently. When I told them that in The Netherlands children aren’t saints and they will try everything they can to dodge school or to do anything against the rules, they look at me with big eyes: ‘How do you correct them if you aren’t allowed to touch them?’ ‘You will have to talk some sense into them, talk about decent behaviour and why there are rules. Then let them do some work as a consequence for his/her actions.’ That was something that was impossible with an African child, they all said. 'Our children are different, they don't listen if you don't teach them the hard way.' I was so surprised by that answer. I said: ‘They are not used to it yet because at home they are also beaten when they aren’t acting as they should do according to their parents, but somebody has to start making a change!’ Luckely lot of them agreed on that. 

Thanks............ Azara!!!!

After 3 months of doing not much, at least that is how it felt for me, I’m now visiting GSS Azara for a whole week. It’s a busy week of observing lessons of my National Volunteer and arranging workshops for teachers in the school. I like it like this, finally the feeling of being tired after doing a lot of work.

Monday I left the Ministry of Education around 10 am after some discussions about the vehicle. The Permanent Secretary was a little hesitant to let me go without a spare tire. The driver thought it would be okay and I had to tell if I was okay with that. It took us 2 hours to decide I was allowed to go. In a prior blog I already described the road to Azara, one of the remote villages I have to visit during this project, is a real challenge. This Monday it was not as bad as I remembered from last November but still the Governor did not finish as he promised. Also the electricity was still not connected; doesn’t make a difference for the hospitality in Azara.

The chairman of the PTA (Parent Teacher Association) put his second house to my disposal and Chris (my national volunteer working here) took really good care of me. He even arranged a generator for the night before the workshop so I could do some work after 7 pm.

The Tuesday morning I observed one of Chris’ lessons to see if he learned something during the previous workshops. And yes he did. He really was trying to involve the pupils, surely when he arranged group work. Although the groups of 9 where slightly to big, he let them select some sentences in groups of phrases. Nice idea!!!

 

That afternoon we travelled to Lafia, I wanted to go to Teddy and Sreela’s send forth party at NACWYCA and Chris wanted to say goodbye to Sreela. The principal took us halfway. We had a nice chat about schools and education in Nassarawa state. About the new hope now El Makura will be the governor. I also got to know that principals can just without a good reason can be transferred. It is what happened to him and the former principal of GSS Nasarawa, they swooped places. This principal didn’t like it at allllll. He told me he would refuse to work in this school, it was too small for his ability. 

After seeing Sreela and Teddy dance the Indian and Nigerian way, listening to some speeches, giving my farewell wishes we left for Azara again on Wednesday morning. Azara by public is a whole new experience on its own, but Azara by public transport after a heavy rain is quite adventurous. Imagine a road with more holes than pavement, an overloaded car and other traffic. You will go from one side of the road to the other to avoid the holes. After this you enter a road without any pavement, because the governor didn’t finish it. At this point I was a sleep, think as some kind of automatic self-protection from stress, till one of the passengers shouted: ”Careful will you, didn’t you see that other car spinning?”

Getting closer to Azara the road got worse and worse. We even had to get out of the car to cross a bridge. Normally the car will drive through the water on that spot but water level was too high. Finally we made it without any weird things happening.

That afternoon was a good one. I had to prepare the workshop sessions for the next day. I already had some materials but had to write everything out as there are no printers in Azara and I have to set the right example off course. Making posters, group work and small assignments till 7.30 pm. Chris did arrange a gen for that day so I could work a little after dark. Not to much didn’t want mosquitoes to enter the house.

On Thursday it was D-day. The workshop day. The day that I would meet teachers from GSS Azara, JSS Azara and all the corpers in the local government. We expected around 50 participants at 10 am at the school. As it is Nigeria We started with half the number of participants around 11 am. But nonetheless The participants that were there were involved and enthusiastic. They just played along in the activities, even better then I hoped they would. It Was a really good day! Have the feeling I shown the teachers that a little change in approach can already make a big difference in the classroom. The proof I saw this morning. Just a few pupils came to school as it was Childrens day to day, and only 3 teachers. One of them taught maths’ and he used some little adjustments in his lesson that made it more involving. Really nice to see and really good to know that I probably made sense during the workshop!!!! 

something to compare

Something to compare
After 6 months in Nigeria it is time to go home for a short visit. 16 days of full fat milk, cheese and yoghurt, but also 16 days of meeting friends and family, but also visiting two of my old schools. Stedelijk Dalton at Zutphen and Pallas Athene college at Ede. I wanted to get some answers to questions I have about learning attitude and teaching. The most important question is: What makes that children in The Netherlands are more involved in learning than the Nigerian pupils? Is this something cultural or does it have to do with the attitudes of teachers?
A small comparison:

Why do teachers in Nigeria use corporal punishment while scientific proof says that pupils who feel unsafe cannot learn? Do the teachers use corporal punishment because they don’t know better? Do they use it because their education was not complete enough with psychology and sociology? So in the next 2 years I will try to find answers to these questions. You can say; this is my case study during my VSO placement in Nigeria.

just the other office

Nigeria, a country that one’s had the best educational system of sub-Saharan Africa, has now an education sector that is literally falling apart. Falling apart because schools collaps. Luckily some principals don’t allow their pupils to come in to school during rainy weather. But what then? Also the federal government doesn’t seem to mind that schools close for 4 weeks. Elections are more important than education…..
My questions ….. or better to say Lucy’s and my questions are: how come that things deteriorated so much? How come the differences between different states are so enormous? How is responsible for maintaining buildings, writing curriculum, supplying furniture and learning aids? To get an answer to these questions Lucy got suggested that we should go to the Federal secretariat of the ministry of education. So we did.
After a summit for the 10th anniversary of the international year of volunteering we took off to the ministry. In the taxi thinking about how to put the questions and who to talk to, we arrived. A little bit nervous. How do we know where to go? How do we know who is the right person? Where do we start and how do we introduce ourselves? We decided to start to look for the director of schools. So we went to the 6th floor. We popped in the first open door to ask where we could find the director. In 606. There we were directed to 610 and there to the first office we entered. The new directions lead us to the nearby office where somebody was sleeping on the desk. Visualize a head that crashed down by gravity. She told us to go to the third floor, to the director of administration. On the third floor we also visited 3 office and got directed to the eight floor…… or was it the sixth …. again.
In the hallway we decided for ourselves that we had to make a choice. Lucy got the advice to seek it higher in the hierarchical system, the minister of education should know our answers.
Mmmmm, minister …… are we dressed properly? What do we really want to know? Why are we here? New deliberation in the hallway. We took the advice of a lovely lady in the hallway and we went to the ps’ office (Permanent secretary). ‘ He knows everything’: she said.
After entering 2 office and asking if the ps was in we were sent to a waiting room. Nice chairs and a tv + some other people.
Being in Nigeria for a while now, we know that waiting is part of the daily routine. Also the fact that secretaries don’t know anything about the agenda of their ogar (boss) is known by us. But waiting for somebody for more than an hour while he is not in the office is a little bit strange….. surely when it is already 5 o’clock in the afternoon.
All and all after a while Lucy did get the advice to write a letter in which she has to invite herself at the ps’ office ……... After 2 hours waiting.
What did we gain: knowledge about structure of the building, some good practice examples of schools (advertising on tv) and how to find our way in a bureaucratic environment (conversation with lady that also was waiting).

no dancing at all.......

Commissioning is a new word that I learned this week. Still don’t know what it means literally, but it has to do something with the official opening of a building. Viola commissioned her project (two classroom school building) on her birthday. The 28th of February 2011 will be a date she won’t forget soon. Almost all invited people came to see the official opening.

The proud shine on Viola’s face was enough to know that she was happy and satisfied. Nawani Aboki (owner of NACWYCA, chairman of CSACEFA and possible new governor of Nasarawa State) was the proud chairman of the day. In his speech he told us that he was the one whom introduced Uche and Viola to each other. The two ladies had the same dream and he brought those dreams together. Viola wanted to leave a landmark behind after leaving Nigeria and Uche wanted to help out a community. Uche lacked the right skills to pull it off and Viola lacked a place to put her landmark. Together they build the school block for two classrooms in Kurikyo in 4 months’ time. Money came from the German embassy and Viola’s former high school in Germany, labor came from the community.
As Viola is a person who wants to plan things in slight detail the day was well prepared, only in the last moment people wanted to show they are Nigerians and they messed up the how program. They shifted things around and they were adding and scraping things. In the end Viola knew she had to let go and enjoy the whole day just as it would be.

After all official welcomes and speeches, Nawani cut the cord and the man from the embassy, the village head, Uche, Viola and the man from UBEB (universal basic education board) cut the cake, traditional dancers took the floor. Traditional dancers…….. What do you think they are? What do you think they look like? What do you think they do?............... None of your answers is probably right. In Kurikyo they don’t dance, they don’t wear traditional clothes and it is not a mixture of man and women. In this case it was a few guys in the age of 18 till 25 with an old man as their leader. They were wearing normal pants and tiny tops like teenagers sometimes wear and they had big knifes.
Their ‘dance’ was cutting themselves with those knifes in front of the village head and Viola. The old man then gave them some green stuff (looked like Nederwiet) and a razorblade. After eating the green stuff they put the razorblade in their mouth and started chewing. They eat the razorblade!!!!!!
This is no dancing!!!!! This is weird!

Learning in Abuja

What does a teacher need to know before you put him/her in front of a classroom? That was the main question I had to ask myself the last few weeks after Christmas. What is important to know? What are the essential basics about teaching?
These questions guided me in organizing a 2-day-workshop for NGVP in Abuja last week (7th and 8th of February). The topics that popped up in my mind were; learning theories, learning strategies, learning ability, learning styles, Bloom, Maslov, pedagogy, personal development, self-reflection on teaching, didactics, effective learning and participation.
So I picked a few of those topics and asked my colleagues to prepare a part of the workshop. So in Kano they had to prepare something about learning in general, learning styles and personal development. I asked Lea from Kwara to prepare the part about active learning and participation. And I prepared the part about pedagogy and classroom/school management. But also an alternative program in case somebody couldn’t be there.

I arrived in Abuja on Friday February 4th to photocopy the handouts and other stuff we needed during the program. We planned to meet in Abuja on Saturday so we would have an extra day for last minute preparation. But like everything in Nigeria, things don’t go as planned. Lea couldn’t come at all and the people from Kano couldn’t come earlier then Sunday because the car wasn’t there on Saturday. So there was nothing else to do then find something to do for myself. Visit Wuse market, get my phone fixed and move from Viola’s apartment to Crystal Palace. In the evening I met Thessa and we went clubbing/dancing at Ibiza. Nice to be in the city!!! Thanks Thessa!
On Sunday I decided it should be a slow day; late breakfast and swimming. And in de late afternoon I did some reading in the lobby of the hotel because all participants should arrive.
It was nice to see all my own NGV’s again after a real long break, but it was also nice to see all the others and the international volunteers.
Monday Marianne and Annabelle started the main sessions about Learning and Learning styles, after a short introduction activity. How the brain works…….. Basic needs before somebody is able to learn anything. Sensory learning like, visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learning. Learning theories like behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism. All these words should be acracadabra any more for the participants. It was really good and inspiring to see the participants debating the topics. They kept asking questions about the topics even after the day was over.
The next day it was Julian and my turn to perform. I started the day about inclusive education; how do you involve all the children from your classroom in your lesson? What do you need to consider on fore hand? How can you create a learning friendly environment in the classroom and school? All those questions are important to answer before starting teaching.
Julian had the graveyard shift with his session about effective learning. During this session it was really nice to see how Marianne was right about the different learning styles. Julian only addressed to the auditory learners, so the others had problems staying tuned in. Chinedu, as a total visual learner, even fell asleep. Nice moment to reflect on.
Most important for me was the input of the participants, their enthusiasm and the evaluation of the whole training. Most beautiful comments were:
•The lesson/lectures helped me to have interest in teaching more than any other work
•The workshop was full of fun and interesting
•I learned that you people have what it takes! I really feel good.
I was tired but I felt full of new energy after the workshop

Ogbagi: Ultimate development work?! 1

When was the last weekend I didn’t travel at all? I don’t remember to be honest. Last weekend I was at least the Saturday in Lafia. I have had my first tennis lesson that morning, knowing that the next lesson wouldn’t be within the next two weeks, because of work and parties. So where did I go this time then? With whom and why? 

Richard, my housemate, is an International volunteer working for an umbrella organization for NGO’s. So he does work for all members in Nasarawa State. One of the NGO’s is fighting for a community school to become a government school. It is the secondary school in Eggon Hills. There are 8 communities in the hills whom together build a secondary school. Right now the communities pay the teachers, all maintenance, books everything. Quite expensive, although the teachers do earn even less then government teachers.  The principal, Manasseh, invited Richard to come and visit the school for a second time. This time Manasseh asked him to bring more International Volunteers, so he could pass on the information to other ears and other channels.

When was the last weekend I didn’t travel at all? I don’t remember to be honest. Last weekend I was at least the Saturday in Lafia. I have had my first tennis lesson that morning, knowing that the next lesson wouldn’t be within the next two weeks, because of work and parties. So where did I go this time then? With whom and why?

We were supposed to go with 5 international volunteers and some people from local NGO’s, in the end only Richard, Teddy and I took the challenge of a 3 hour walk through Eggon hills. Manasseh, some local kids and a teacher were waiting for us at the start of the trail. The kids were there to carry the pure water, Manasseh to lead the way and encourage us. It wasn’t a simple walk and after a while I was really clad that I did some tracking in Kagoro and Obudu. The views were magnificent!! Around every corner, behind every rock a new surprise.

We started walking around 4 pm and arrived at Manasseh’s house around 7 pm. It’s was just starting to get dark. At the house we installed ourselves in our rooms. Teddy and Richard together in a room that was built for teachers to come and stay. Not yet finished but a nice way to make the stay for a teacher more comfortable. I did get a room in the house, probably the room of Manasseh’s oldest son. That night was an early night. Exhausted!!!

On Monday morning Manasseh gave a briefing of what he wanted us to do at the school. As we were planning on staying for 2 days we could take our time to observe the teachers today and maybe prepare some lessons. Then we could give some lessons in the afternoon or on Tuesday. When we arrived in the school around 8 am there was only 1 teacher present. 1 teacher for secondary school and none for primary school!!! Problem! Change of plans: If we please could arrange some lessons for this morning. No big problem for me, as I am a teacher, slightly bigger problem for Teddy and Richard. Luckily they could find some quick maths to teach. At the same time a good way to check the level of maths.

My first lesson that day was about mapping and locating. I drew a map of the world on the black board and asked the pupils of SSS1 and 2 to copy it in their notebooks. They were stunned. They never had to draw something, especially not a map of the world. I could see it in the way they started drawing the continents. Next part of the assignment was locating 6 continents in the map. First question; which continents are there? After the puzzle of naming the continents and putting them on the right spot on the map, I asked them to locate Nigeria, India, The United Kingdom and The Netherlands. Luckily the pupils knew they had to be in Africa but where……… they had no clue. After helping them with a compass, because they knew it was West Africa, a girl could place it in the right spot. Everybody can probably guess that the other countries didn’t end up at the right spot on the map. After explaining why maps and locating are important I moved on to a subject closer to home: Vegetation zone in Africa. As locating is really important at geography, I drew a map of Africa and started drawing the vegetation zones. With every zone I located in the map I told a little story to sketch a picture in the minds of the pupils. They were looking at me as I was speaking Spanish. They were not able to make images in their heads because they had never seen examples of images. A reason for me to get the pupils outside and get them looking around and moving around. I drew the map of Africa in the sand and asked the pupils to move from on zone to the other. In every zone I told them to pretend to be the vegetation in the zone. So, i.e. rainforest with big trees and leafs, making yourself big and arms spread out.

In JSS1 I wanted to play a game to let them learn the different parts of a flowery plant. I drew a picture of a plant and wanted the pupils to form groups.

·         Culture shock one:Kids didn’t move on their own, they formed no groups, they were just sitting and looking at me like I came from Mars. After I made the groups and turn the tables a little, I asked the groups to number the members 1 till 4. Another 10 min past in silence, again they were looking at me like I came from Mars. Teddy how was visiting my lesson, and part of one of the groups, tried to get his group to organize themselves. Finally after 30 minutes we were playing a memory/drawing game.

·         Culture shock two: Kids were not able to look at a picture, store it in their heads and draw it in their own notebook. Lot of the drawings of these 12+ year olds were like drawings of a 4 year old in The Netherlands!

·         Culture shock three: After the game I wanted to test the memory and drew the flower on the chalkboard, put lines at several parts and wrote the names. After the recap I whipped away the names and asked pupils to come forward to write a name at the right spot in the drawing. Most of the boys, but also some girls, could write! They had spent 6 years in school, past 6 classes and still weren’t able to write letters!

Barbara, Anneke, Helma and Dorien and everybody else teaching creative subjects I now know how important it is to develop creativity and creative thinking in an early age! I’ll never underestimate any of the creative subjects in school again!!!!