It’s the first of July today – usually the first day of the summer holidays, or in recent years, the start of a summer course! – but today I find myself in my NIED office starting my final report on my placement. Its so strange to be at the end of my placement, as it seems not so long ago that I was at the half way point and now I’m all but finished. The last few months have flown.
I’m a typical teacher, and I’m really only thinking only of my forthcoming holidays. I don’t think it’ll hit me that the year is actually over until sometime in September! There have been lots of volunteer leaving in the last few months. Many of the volunteers who came out with me have already left; Eva, a German volunteer, at the end of April, Jelda and Mignon, Dutch volunteers left in June. There seems to ‘leaving parties’ every second weekend but it still hasn’t hit me that my ‘year out’ is almost over.
These past few weeks in work, ever since the ‘National Training’ in fact, have been all about finishing up and it turns out that the training workshops on the ‘Integrated Planning Manuals’ were the perfect way to finish off my work with NIED. The two weeks of training went really well – to be honest, far better than I had ever expected. However it was hard work as there was some resistance to some aspects of the manual at first, particularly to the section on assessment and the structure of the lesson plans.
Assessment here is all about teachers assigning grades (each learner is given about 40 grades on various subjects in each term!) but the manual suggests moving away from this and that the purpose of assessing the learners should be to find out where they are having difficulties and then trying to help them. Although everyone agreed this was right and should be emphasised, some Advisory Teachers and classroom teachers at the workshop needed convincing that filling in record books with lots of ‘criterion referenced’ grades was not the best way to go about this. Assessment in Lower Primary will be a focus area for the next few years but hopefully the first steps in improving assessment procedures have been taken.
Everyone also agreed that lots (if not most) teachers are having huge problems in structuring lessons and planning the work to be covered in each week but they were very worried about introducing new ideas that would “confuse” teachers. But when we explained the thinking behind the 2 part lesson plan in the manual wasn’t new but would help teachers be more organized (they have to write a weekly overview of the main content of the week’s planned work and then use it to write their day’s lesson plans that concentrated on the ‘how’ of the teaching – very labour intensive by our standards but that was a big cut back from the previous structure) We then demonstrated, step by step how it would be done, as well as having the participants do a practical exercise in using this type of plan and they were slowly but completely converted!
By the end of the workshop, when we were coming up with the key messages of the training, a few Advisory Teachers claimed that they felt so enthusiastic about the manual that they couldn’t wait to go and show it to teachers. I’m not sure how serious they were or what the quality of the follow-up training will be but it felt good to have been involved in something that teachers felt positive about!
As part of the training workshop we also included some sessions on teaching methodologies/strategies, which weren’t strictly speaking to do with planning but were lapped up by the participants. It so rewarding to see teachers have ‘light bulb moments’ (when I explained that a teacher should have a purpose in mind when playing a game or teaching a song) and get excited about been shown some simple games (Simon Says and Fruit Bowl) and strategies (using the Daily News) In some cases they got a bit over excited about playing the games and learning some simple songs. At one point I had 22 something middle aged women ready to beat the heads off each other over a game of Chinese Whispers and at another stage I had half of the same group literally rolling around the floor to the song ’10 in the Bed’!
On the last day I even got the offer of a woman’s son in marriage if I would stay in Namibia and do more workshops. Another lady tried to top this offering me a farm and 2 goats! It was very flattering and humbling even if they were joking (I think!) Alina was practically glowing with pride by the end of the 2 weeks and kept telling me how she felt so much more confident in herself and in organizing workshops.
So it is feeling very positive about my work that I end my time in Namibia. I’m pretty sure I haven’t solved any major educational issues in Namibia and ‘the bloody manual’ is about as far from perfect as it could be, but I think it is an improvement on what was there before and if it clarifies things a bit or helps a few teachers do their job better that’s enough for me. As for the other part of my work, ‘sharing skills’ with my counterpart, I’ve seen Alina’s confidence grow immeasurably in the past months and she is definitely more organized in her approach to her work. Since I didn’t come out here to change the world, or even try, at the very least I can be happy that I didn’t do any harm!
Thursday, July 1, 2010
April and May
Ooops, I'm falling behind on posting my blogs. I wrote this one at the start of June, but never got around to posting it... but better late than never (as my Dad would say!)
It’s been a strange few months. I feel I’ve really settled into a routine and feel totally at home here now yet it’s been anything but a routine in the 7 weeks since Easter.
I’ve been busy work wise; my first challenge was the NIED being invited to present at the Mathematics Congress in Swakopmund. This came up before Easter, and when Alina told me that she’d asked, I just casually said “No, problem, sure I’ll help you something on Maths games” It turns out the Maths Congress has become something of a big deal in the Namibian Education world (it was opened by the Minister of Education) so there was alot of hard work to put together a presentation on Maths games in Lower Primary. The presentation went quite well (despite some time issues) and the congress itself was very interesting. It was, in way, gratifying to see the same seem to problem exist at all levels of the Education system and a bit frustrating that there is still little acknowledgement of the vital role lower primary education plays in this. If learners are failing in the upper grades because of a lack of basic mathematical knowledge surely it’s obvious that Maths teaching in the lower grades is the place to start with support?
The infamous ‘Integrated Planning Manuals’ for Grade 1 and 2 are almost finished (officially) but I think they still need alot of fine tuning. I’ve tried to get actual teachers to try out the schemes/lesson plans to give us some feedback but that hasn’t been very successful. Most of the feedback is just pointing out typos, or tiny errors in semantics, which is helpful but not really comments on how teacher think the content or plans would work (or even if it makes sense to them!) Maybe teachers don’t have the confidence or professional knowledge to comment on them? Some of the Advisory Teachers did send in comments on the content but unfortunately a lot of these showed a lack of understanding of the fundamental concept of integration!
Next comes the ‘National Training’ and as far as I can work out, this is where Alina and I train the Advisory Teachers on how to using the manuals, and then they go on to train the teachers in their regions. So we’re now working on planning and structuring the training although I’m not sure if I, or the manuals, are ready for this but we’re about to find out!
On the lighter side of NIED, the Sports Club, which I’d been hearing about since I arrived suddenly came to life at the end of April to begin training for a competition organised by Ministry of Education where all the Regions (+NIED) compete in Soccer (men only) Netball (women only) and volleyball (mixed). The plan was to train four evenings a week for an hour or so (rather than once or twice a week for the whole year which might have helped with commitment and fitness issues!!) and then head off to Keetmanshoop for week for the competitions. So I joined the ladies to play netball (first time I’d even heard of it beyond ‘Home and Away’) which I was told was a very easy to get the hang of (it wasn’t)
The ‘training’ and organisation of the whole thing was typically haphazard, with a real lack of communication/information, but since I didn’t take it very seriously it didn’t bother me! I went along to get to know some of my colleagues, have a few days away and get a bit of exercise! On these I was successful, although NIED didn’t do terrible well in the competitions (the volleyball team was picked randomly minutes before the first match, didn’t do any training and then wondered why they were hopped off!!) The whole thing did allow me to confirm to myself why sport isn’t really ‘my thing’!
There were quite a few public holidays in May (it’s school holidays for teachers and Learners) so that meant a few long weekends for me. For one I just hung out with Katy and Kev, who were house sitting for the former VSO Namibia director. This turned into a long relaxing lazy 4-day weekend in a Windhoek mansion watching DSTV (a whole series of ‘Friends’ and hours of ‘Come Dine With Me’)
On the last long weekend in May we decided to get away to Luderitz (a lovely quite little harbour town about 1200km south-west of Windhoek) so we hired a car and hit the road. Althoug Most same Europeans wouldn’t consider driving that distance for a weekend, it doesn’t seem to be an issue in Namibia and we did what should have been a 10 hour journey in about 7 as the roads are so straight and good you find yourself doing 160km without even realising it! We spend our few days visiting a mining ‘ghost-town’, drinking beer/rum while watching the sun set on the coast and eating lots of fish but the highlight of the trip was a catamaran trip out into the south Atlantic. We had fantastic weather and saw penguins, flamingos, 2 different types of Whale (Humpback and Southern Right) and lots of dolphins – we even sailed with a whole school of them for a while. It was fantastic!
So between long weekends away or in Windhoek, Sports trips and conferences I’ve hardly been in Okahandja at all this past few weeks. Next week end we’re off for our second Global Educaion weekend in Ngepi (a whole day’s drive north east of here) and then straight to the ‘National Training’ workshop in the Harmony Seminar Centre outside Windhoek for two weeks. Not that I’m complaining...
It’s been a strange few months. I feel I’ve really settled into a routine and feel totally at home here now yet it’s been anything but a routine in the 7 weeks since Easter.
I’ve been busy work wise; my first challenge was the NIED being invited to present at the Mathematics Congress in Swakopmund. This came up before Easter, and when Alina told me that she’d asked, I just casually said “No, problem, sure I’ll help you something on Maths games” It turns out the Maths Congress has become something of a big deal in the Namibian Education world (it was opened by the Minister of Education) so there was alot of hard work to put together a presentation on Maths games in Lower Primary. The presentation went quite well (despite some time issues) and the congress itself was very interesting. It was, in way, gratifying to see the same seem to problem exist at all levels of the Education system and a bit frustrating that there is still little acknowledgement of the vital role lower primary education plays in this. If learners are failing in the upper grades because of a lack of basic mathematical knowledge surely it’s obvious that Maths teaching in the lower grades is the place to start with support?
The infamous ‘Integrated Planning Manuals’ for Grade 1 and 2 are almost finished (officially) but I think they still need alot of fine tuning. I’ve tried to get actual teachers to try out the schemes/lesson plans to give us some feedback but that hasn’t been very successful. Most of the feedback is just pointing out typos, or tiny errors in semantics, which is helpful but not really comments on how teacher think the content or plans would work (or even if it makes sense to them!) Maybe teachers don’t have the confidence or professional knowledge to comment on them? Some of the Advisory Teachers did send in comments on the content but unfortunately a lot of these showed a lack of understanding of the fundamental concept of integration!
Next comes the ‘National Training’ and as far as I can work out, this is where Alina and I train the Advisory Teachers on how to using the manuals, and then they go on to train the teachers in their regions. So we’re now working on planning and structuring the training although I’m not sure if I, or the manuals, are ready for this but we’re about to find out!
On the lighter side of NIED, the Sports Club, which I’d been hearing about since I arrived suddenly came to life at the end of April to begin training for a competition organised by Ministry of Education where all the Regions (+NIED) compete in Soccer (men only) Netball (women only) and volleyball (mixed). The plan was to train four evenings a week for an hour or so (rather than once or twice a week for the whole year which might have helped with commitment and fitness issues!!) and then head off to Keetmanshoop for week for the competitions. So I joined the ladies to play netball (first time I’d even heard of it beyond ‘Home and Away’) which I was told was a very easy to get the hang of (it wasn’t)
The ‘training’ and organisation of the whole thing was typically haphazard, with a real lack of communication/information, but since I didn’t take it very seriously it didn’t bother me! I went along to get to know some of my colleagues, have a few days away and get a bit of exercise! On these I was successful, although NIED didn’t do terrible well in the competitions (the volleyball team was picked randomly minutes before the first match, didn’t do any training and then wondered why they were hopped off!!) The whole thing did allow me to confirm to myself why sport isn’t really ‘my thing’!
There were quite a few public holidays in May (it’s school holidays for teachers and Learners) so that meant a few long weekends for me. For one I just hung out with Katy and Kev, who were house sitting for the former VSO Namibia director. This turned into a long relaxing lazy 4-day weekend in a Windhoek mansion watching DSTV (a whole series of ‘Friends’ and hours of ‘Come Dine With Me’)
On the last long weekend in May we decided to get away to Luderitz (a lovely quite little harbour town about 1200km south-west of Windhoek) so we hired a car and hit the road. Althoug Most same Europeans wouldn’t consider driving that distance for a weekend, it doesn’t seem to be an issue in Namibia and we did what should have been a 10 hour journey in about 7 as the roads are so straight and good you find yourself doing 160km without even realising it! We spend our few days visiting a mining ‘ghost-town’, drinking beer/rum while watching the sun set on the coast and eating lots of fish but the highlight of the trip was a catamaran trip out into the south Atlantic. We had fantastic weather and saw penguins, flamingos, 2 different types of Whale (Humpback and Southern Right) and lots of dolphins – we even sailed with a whole school of them for a while. It was fantastic!
So between long weekends away or in Windhoek, Sports trips and conferences I’ve hardly been in Okahandja at all this past few weeks. Next week end we’re off for our second Global Educaion weekend in Ngepi (a whole day’s drive north east of here) and then straight to the ‘National Training’ workshop in the Harmony Seminar Centre outside Windhoek for two weeks. Not that I’m complaining...
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