Suomalaiset opettajat kehittävät koulutusta World Teacher -ohjelmassa Keniassa yhdessä hollantilaisten ja kenialaisten opettajien kanssa. Opettajat ilman rajoja -verkosto toimii ohjelmassa yhteistyössä Edukans -järjestön kanssa. Blogi kuuluu matkan blogisarjaan.
Finally! This is the day we all have waited for! We are devided into 3 groups and every group is visiting its own school. Today is the last day of school vacation and we are told by Edukans to prepare lessons for Monday with our Kenyan colleagues and demonstrate the lessons . Full of expectation we drive an hour to our school. We enjoy the nature with the red soil showing now and then between the tense bushes, where we also spot ostriches and monkeys. Luckily our driver is mainly driving tourists around in game parks so he can tell us the names of birds we see along the road.
Erik, Jane and William, our Kenyan colleagues we got to know already in the workshops , welcome us warmly and show us around on the school compound. I am surprised they even have a school kitchen. Unfortunately every day the kids leave school hungry, because the school is not in a food programme at the moment.
The main task of the day turns out to be of some challenge. The school books of the teachers are locked away during vacation time and only the headmaster can hand them out. And the headmaster? He is an hour drive away in a workshop for Kenyan school leaders from Edukans. William tells us that in the first week after vacation the pupils and the teachers clean the school and the yard. It takes some days until all kids are back in school. So the pupils revise things they have learned before vacation. Does that mean in other words that actually nothing is happening in the coming week before we head back to Finland??? What is going on in me? Is there a feeling of powerlessness? We are supposed to split in groups to prepare for Monday. We ask the Kenyan colleague in our group what the kids have been doing in the different subjects and together we think of active learning methods how to revise those contents. Lunch is ready and we end our ‘planning’ without a clear result. I decided back in Finland that I am not going to push anything because of the programme. Everything is up to the Kenyan teacher and I am very curious to see what will happen on Monday and Tuesday when we are in this school.
We enjoy the meal two Maasai mothers have cooked out of the food we brought with us. One of the ladies shows us how they dance and we all have fun trying to learn it. Our Kenyan colleagues seem to be quite amused about that and we just laugh together and appreciate the time with each other.
Susanne Lehikoinen-Weiss
