The Day of the African Child was celebrated up at Kosele Primary School with all due ceremony today. Speeches were made and children from local schools performed a variety of songs, dances and poems. As planned we set off at just after 10 a.m. and the day finally got started at 11.30. Celebrations like this follow a pretty standard format in Kenya. The guests of honour at the meeting (various sponsors, headteachers, local government officials and leaders from the local community) sat on the 'dais' at the front on plastic chairs under a couple of awnings. The children sat in rows of desks.
The meeting started with a prayer and over the course of the day the speeches and entertainment unfolded. Many of the children's performances were very good. One group of girls performed quite a long musical drama following the story of an unfortunate girl who suffers a variety of indignities but ends up being able to finish her education. In a society where the rights of women and the 'girl child' are still a serious issue the protection of girls is a major concern and the theme was presented in a number of ways during the day. The children were very well behaved and appreciative of the entertainment. I'm not really sure what they made of the speeches. As the 'token white' at the meeting I was also called up to make a speech. Trying to just occupy a place in the background is very hard, despite my best efforts not to draw attention to myself. Two of our children were called on, as guests of honour, to make speeches and did a very good job. I was very proud of them.
At the end of the meeting the head teacher of Kosele Primary School (the host of the event) called all of the heads to see him and invited us all to a meal at the Administration Police (AP) canteen just up the road in Kosele. I chatted on the way to the canteen to a fairly recently arrived head of a primary school about five kilometres up the road. He was a mine of useful information and encouragement. He is, amongst other things, an assistant chief examiner of English at a national level. I'm hoping to chat to him in the future about ways of strengthening our English teaching.
The Administration Police provide security for the District Commissioner's compound in Kosele. Their canteen is a very nice place and serves a very good chicken and chapati. There own security seemed a bit provisional though. Someone seemed to have stolen all the cutlery from the canteen so we all ate with our fingers! Still. When in Rome ...... The walk back to our place from Kosele was a welcome break from my normal routine and finished the day nicely.
Sunday, 16 June 2013
Saturday, 15 June 2013
Time flies
It seems hardly any time since I started this visit to Kosele but half-term is already here. Its been a busy time with a number of new projects started and so far going well. Our new remedial teaching in the primary school is probably our most ambitious new venture. It involves a small group of twelve pupils from our two eldest primary classes. Every afternoon they spend two hours together and receive intensive coaching in subjects where we have identified gaps in their learning and capability. The feedback I've had from the teachers involved has been very encouraging so far. One of the biggest gains for a number of these pupils has been a major boost to their self-confidence. Pupils who don't usually raise their heads above the parapet and get involved in lessons with a big group are finding their feet in this smaller group and are beginning to find their voices in their morning lessons as well.
The teaching part of our youth club session with the youngsters tonight focused on a similar theme. I have read a book by John Ortberg called If You Want to Walk on the Water You've Got to Get Out of the Boat a couple of times now. The author writes in a very accessible style and puts a serious message over very effectively. We talked a bit tonight about faith, trust and walking on the water. I often wish I'd taken the gospel message at face value earlier in my life. I think that RE lessons and a very boring experience of church in the first couple of years of secondary school built the foundations of a long period of being very anti God and any type of religion. I'm still not very fond of religion but I do regret the missed opportunities that were caused by my unbelief.
Tomorrow should be an interesting day. Instead of going to church and Sunday School all of our youngsters will be attending an organised event in a local school celebrating the Day of the African Child. There seem to have been a lot of these type of events this year (this will be the third that has involved our children). I'm not quite sure what to expect, as I have not been around when they have taken place in the past. Our invitation said that the proceedings will start at 9 a.m. The consensus is that we should set off at about ten to arrive in time for everything starting, hopefully, at around eleven. I do remember seeing a request for financial support for sodas at the event so there might be a bottle of coke in it as well as some entertainment and encouragement. Our girls have been practicing a turn in case they are asked to sing. I'll let you know how it goes.
The teaching part of our youth club session with the youngsters tonight focused on a similar theme. I have read a book by John Ortberg called If You Want to Walk on the Water You've Got to Get Out of the Boat a couple of times now. The author writes in a very accessible style and puts a serious message over very effectively. We talked a bit tonight about faith, trust and walking on the water. I often wish I'd taken the gospel message at face value earlier in my life. I think that RE lessons and a very boring experience of church in the first couple of years of secondary school built the foundations of a long period of being very anti God and any type of religion. I'm still not very fond of religion but I do regret the missed opportunities that were caused by my unbelief.
Tomorrow should be an interesting day. Instead of going to church and Sunday School all of our youngsters will be attending an organised event in a local school celebrating the Day of the African Child. There seem to have been a lot of these type of events this year (this will be the third that has involved our children). I'm not quite sure what to expect, as I have not been around when they have taken place in the past. Our invitation said that the proceedings will start at 9 a.m. The consensus is that we should set off at about ten to arrive in time for everything starting, hopefully, at around eleven. I do remember seeing a request for financial support for sodas at the event so there might be a bottle of coke in it as well as some entertainment and encouragement. Our girls have been practicing a turn in case they are asked to sing. I'll let you know how it goes.
Thursday, 13 June 2013
Improvisation
One of the things I really like about working out here is the variety of activities that I get involved in during a typical week. Every once in a while I find an opportunity to abandon the planning, management and execution details of running our schools and indulge in some much more basic practical work.
Giving students opportunities to carry out science experiments is a major challenge in many schools in Kenya. Funding difficulties, lack of resources and lack of training conspire to make many of the experiments and demonstrations that students typically experience in schools in the UK and the US uncommon for our young people over here. I walked in on a science lesson on electro-magnets this morning and felt compelled to spend a few hours assembling one for demonstration purposes. I had to scavenge round a bit for the materials and experimented with a number of nails, wires, batteries and windings before I found the best design but I ended up with a convincing piece of demonstration equipment. This then set me thinking about constructing some more basic electrical training equipment. Its certainly not 'rocket science' but it would make quite a difference to our children and teachers. We start our half -term holiday next week so it should be possible to find some time to experiment with a basic design for our 'electricity lab'.
On a completely different note we were mildly encouraged this evening by the first rain for a couple of weeks. Compared to the biblical scale of the rain earlier in the year tonight's shower was hardly enough to give our crops much of a watering. We're really hoping that the heavens will open soon. If they don't we probably have enough water stored in our irrigation tanks to last about three weeks. After that we'll have to resort to using water from our borehole. We've only really used the borehole in absolute emergencies so far. Its been a very reliable source of water for us but we had been concerned that it was slightly salty, which could cause problems in the long term for the fertility of our land. We had a visit from 'the man from the ministry' (Water Management Board) yesterday evening and he told me that our water salinity level was 0. (It was written down on his inspection form). This was something of an answer to prayer. After discussing the water situation with Duncan, our farm manager, I'd been planning to find out the best way of testing the water in the borehole. Right on cue our friend from the water board turned up with the answer to my question. Its good to know that if the worse comes to the worse our borehole is a good source of water for the farm. However, on the grounds that we'd like to continue irrigating with the water stored in our tanks from our 'roof harvest' we'll continuing praying for rain.
Giving students opportunities to carry out science experiments is a major challenge in many schools in Kenya. Funding difficulties, lack of resources and lack of training conspire to make many of the experiments and demonstrations that students typically experience in schools in the UK and the US uncommon for our young people over here. I walked in on a science lesson on electro-magnets this morning and felt compelled to spend a few hours assembling one for demonstration purposes. I had to scavenge round a bit for the materials and experimented with a number of nails, wires, batteries and windings before I found the best design but I ended up with a convincing piece of demonstration equipment. This then set me thinking about constructing some more basic electrical training equipment. Its certainly not 'rocket science' but it would make quite a difference to our children and teachers. We start our half -term holiday next week so it should be possible to find some time to experiment with a basic design for our 'electricity lab'.
On a completely different note we were mildly encouraged this evening by the first rain for a couple of weeks. Compared to the biblical scale of the rain earlier in the year tonight's shower was hardly enough to give our crops much of a watering. We're really hoping that the heavens will open soon. If they don't we probably have enough water stored in our irrigation tanks to last about three weeks. After that we'll have to resort to using water from our borehole. We've only really used the borehole in absolute emergencies so far. Its been a very reliable source of water for us but we had been concerned that it was slightly salty, which could cause problems in the long term for the fertility of our land. We had a visit from 'the man from the ministry' (Water Management Board) yesterday evening and he told me that our water salinity level was 0. (It was written down on his inspection form). This was something of an answer to prayer. After discussing the water situation with Duncan, our farm manager, I'd been planning to find out the best way of testing the water in the borehole. Right on cue our friend from the water board turned up with the answer to my question. Its good to know that if the worse comes to the worse our borehole is a good source of water for the farm. However, on the grounds that we'd like to continue irrigating with the water stored in our tanks from our 'roof harvest' we'll continuing praying for rain.
Wednesday, 12 June 2013
Thinkpad Nostalgia
As part of the drive to improve our use of laptops in the schools I've spent some time today restoring a very old IBM Thinkpad laptop. This particular model was first made in 1997 and is, I think, my all time favourite laptop design. Very early in our work I was given a couple of these laptops by the school I was then working in and for some time they were the mainstays of our admin system. They have since, obviously, been superseded by more powerful machines but I have a great fondness for them. Getting the Thinkpad into a usable condition involved a bit of fishing round on the Internet to find some software to make a memory stick work on it. When it finally managed to find the memory stick I was very pleased - laptop 0 me 1.
As I type the restored Thinkpad is churning its way through tidying up all the files it contains. Over the years the way computers work have been increasingly obscured from view so it makes a change to almost be able to see the computer 'thinking'. For any computer buffs among my readers this computer is running Windows 98 and I'm 15% of the way through defragging the hard disc. Anybody old enough to remember doing this will appreciate the beauty of watching the hard disc being re-arranged on the screen in front of you.
Writing my blog on a very modern laptop with the most recent version of Windows on it with a fifteen year old machine churning away beside it provides a powerful reminder of just how much computers have changed in a very short time. It will be interesting to let our students see the difference. I'm also reminded just how good the old equipment was. The Thinkpad was such a good design that a Chinese company bought it up.
The Thinkpad is going to be used as a basic administration machine in the Primary School initially. Recycling such an old machine is very satisfying. It will be good to see it in use again.
As I type the restored Thinkpad is churning its way through tidying up all the files it contains. Over the years the way computers work have been increasingly obscured from view so it makes a change to almost be able to see the computer 'thinking'. For any computer buffs among my readers this computer is running Windows 98 and I'm 15% of the way through defragging the hard disc. Anybody old enough to remember doing this will appreciate the beauty of watching the hard disc being re-arranged on the screen in front of you.
Writing my blog on a very modern laptop with the most recent version of Windows on it with a fifteen year old machine churning away beside it provides a powerful reminder of just how much computers have changed in a very short time. It will be interesting to let our students see the difference. I'm also reminded just how good the old equipment was. The Thinkpad was such a good design that a Chinese company bought it up.
The Thinkpad is going to be used as a basic administration machine in the Primary School initially. Recycling such an old machine is very satisfying. It will be good to see it in use again.
Monday, 10 June 2013
Machine vs Road
To describe the rough track that runs from our place to Oyugis, our nearest town, as a road would be an abuse of the English language. It is, currently, seven kilometres of potholes and ruts and is getting worse by the day. We are experiencing a hot dry spell at the moment with very little rain. If this continues it could be another threat to our farm but we are hoping for an improvement. During the unnaturally wet weather that we experienced earlier in the year the road to Oyugis became a boggy quagmire. Very deep ruts were formed as heavy lorries plied the route and the edges of the road became broken down leaving fairly large drop offs in some places. The hot weather has since baked these new features and they have become rock hard additions to the route.
At about eight pm. this evening I received a call from Mary, our manager, to say that she was 'stranded' in Oyugis because there were no vehicles available. It's incredible how quickly our area shuts down once it becomes dark. The only way to rescue Mary from Oyugis was to drive down in our trusty Landrover and pick her up. Since my last disastrous trip in the Landrover at night (which ended up with the vehicle stuck in a ditch and a damaged gearbox) I've been a bit reluctant to drive after dark. Fortunately this evening has been very dry so the only problem on the journey was the state of the road and the dust, which made it difficult to see very far after another vehicle had passed. I was accompanied by one of our night guards on the trip and we chatted about the usual stuff - the condition of the road, the threat of hijackers at night and other cheery topics. Lurching along in second gear was actually good fun - when the weather conditions are OK it's a good challenge to try and avoid the lumps, bumps and obstacles (dogs, bicycles and a lorry with only one headlight). We reached Oyugis safely, if somewhat slowly.
It's always been a mystery to me how a 'road' can look so different when you travel back along it in the opposite direction at night. The sections that seemed the worse on the way to Oyugis had miraculously smoothed out and the previously comfortable sections became more challenging. After dropping one of our staff members off close to her home we made it back to our place about an hour after starting out. I guess fourteen kilometres an hour at night is a decent enough average speed out here
At about eight pm. this evening I received a call from Mary, our manager, to say that she was 'stranded' in Oyugis because there were no vehicles available. It's incredible how quickly our area shuts down once it becomes dark. The only way to rescue Mary from Oyugis was to drive down in our trusty Landrover and pick her up. Since my last disastrous trip in the Landrover at night (which ended up with the vehicle stuck in a ditch and a damaged gearbox) I've been a bit reluctant to drive after dark. Fortunately this evening has been very dry so the only problem on the journey was the state of the road and the dust, which made it difficult to see very far after another vehicle had passed. I was accompanied by one of our night guards on the trip and we chatted about the usual stuff - the condition of the road, the threat of hijackers at night and other cheery topics. Lurching along in second gear was actually good fun - when the weather conditions are OK it's a good challenge to try and avoid the lumps, bumps and obstacles (dogs, bicycles and a lorry with only one headlight). We reached Oyugis safely, if somewhat slowly.
It's always been a mystery to me how a 'road' can look so different when you travel back along it in the opposite direction at night. The sections that seemed the worse on the way to Oyugis had miraculously smoothed out and the previously comfortable sections became more challenging. After dropping one of our staff members off close to her home we made it back to our place about an hour after starting out. I guess fourteen kilometres an hour at night is a decent enough average speed out here
Friday, 7 June 2013
Good Sports
Answers to yesterday's brainteasers are:
1) 6 one pound coins, 2 ten-penny coins, 4 one-penny coins
2) John can buy 156 bars of chocolate.
I've just finished a good coaching session with my fledgling maths group. Their appetite for improvement and practice is impressive and their willingness to put up with my coaching is commendable.
A couple of weeks ago I was asked by Daniel (our oldest lad) if I would be up for a bit more active form of coaching. He is very keen to start up a football team with the other lads in our Technical School. I explained that I would be a very keen supporter of the team but that they would do better with anybody but me coaching them. I am probably slightly worse at dancing than I am at football but there isn't much in it. Dan wisely took my advice and went ahead with getting the lads sorted out. He came to see me tonight to let me know that he has arranged a match with Kosele Secondary School on Sunday at the 'stadium' in Kosele. To do justice to whoever is responsible for maintaining the stadium it does now have permanent goal posts (so we won't have to bring our own) and there is a small covered terrace for spectators - a big improvement on the situation last year. We had a really good supporters group last time we played a match at the stadium. While Dan and the team get on with practicing their football skills I'll see what we can do about making sure the supporters are geared up to cheering the team on.
1) 6 one pound coins, 2 ten-penny coins, 4 one-penny coins
2) John can buy 156 bars of chocolate.
I've just finished a good coaching session with my fledgling maths group. Their appetite for improvement and practice is impressive and their willingness to put up with my coaching is commendable.
A couple of weeks ago I was asked by Daniel (our oldest lad) if I would be up for a bit more active form of coaching. He is very keen to start up a football team with the other lads in our Technical School. I explained that I would be a very keen supporter of the team but that they would do better with anybody but me coaching them. I am probably slightly worse at dancing than I am at football but there isn't much in it. Dan wisely took my advice and went ahead with getting the lads sorted out. He came to see me tonight to let me know that he has arranged a match with Kosele Secondary School on Sunday at the 'stadium' in Kosele. To do justice to whoever is responsible for maintaining the stadium it does now have permanent goal posts (so we won't have to bring our own) and there is a small covered terrace for spectators - a big improvement on the situation last year. We had a really good supporters group last time we played a match at the stadium. While Dan and the team get on with practicing their football skills I'll see what we can do about making sure the supporters are geared up to cheering the team on.
Thursday, 6 June 2013
Maths bug
It's no good - I've been bitten by the maths bug. It's been a fairly intensive week for maths this week so I guess it's not really all that surprising. The teachers' training day yesterday provided a good focus for strategies to make our pupils more confident mathematicians and was the springboard for a good deal of research for me. I have this tendency to go to town on the research for new ventures, especially if they have the potential to transform a situation.
In my research I've discovered a fascinating new condition called Dyscalculia. This is defined in a book called The Trouble With Maths as "a perseverant condition that affects the ability to acquire mathematical skills despite appropriate instructions." I've also been surprised by the pervasiveness of maths anxiety amongst adults (especially trainee primary teachers) and have found out that young people's maths difficulties are very difficult to pigeon hole. This makes me all the more determined to do what I can to help our teaching team to ratchet up our pupils' maths abilities.
My five 'guinea pigs' for a maths makeover have completed their first diagnostic test for me. Two of them volunteered last night after a coaching session, one was added at the beginning of homework time tonight and two more asked if they could have a paper when they saw what the others were doing. It's fantastic having such keen students.
If you fancy exercising your latent maths talents have a go at these two questions, taken from a book called Mathematics Explained for Primary Teachers. (Real challenge is not to use a calculator and view them as mental arithmetic problems).
1) I have 34 one-penny coins, 29 ten-penny coins and 3 pound coins. Apply the principle of 'exchanging ten of these for one of these' to reduce this collection of coins to the smallest number of 1p, 10p and £1 coins.
2) John was given £50 for his birthday and thought he might spend it all on his favourite chocolate bars. They cost 32p each. How many could he buy?
Answers supplied in tomorrow's post. Give yourself an extra pat on the back if you worked both answers out in your head!
In my research I've discovered a fascinating new condition called Dyscalculia. This is defined in a book called The Trouble With Maths as "a perseverant condition that affects the ability to acquire mathematical skills despite appropriate instructions." I've also been surprised by the pervasiveness of maths anxiety amongst adults (especially trainee primary teachers) and have found out that young people's maths difficulties are very difficult to pigeon hole. This makes me all the more determined to do what I can to help our teaching team to ratchet up our pupils' maths abilities.
My five 'guinea pigs' for a maths makeover have completed their first diagnostic test for me. Two of them volunteered last night after a coaching session, one was added at the beginning of homework time tonight and two more asked if they could have a paper when they saw what the others were doing. It's fantastic having such keen students.
If you fancy exercising your latent maths talents have a go at these two questions, taken from a book called Mathematics Explained for Primary Teachers. (Real challenge is not to use a calculator and view them as mental arithmetic problems).
1) I have 34 one-penny coins, 29 ten-penny coins and 3 pound coins. Apply the principle of 'exchanging ten of these for one of these' to reduce this collection of coins to the smallest number of 1p, 10p and £1 coins.
2) John was given £50 for his birthday and thought he might spend it all on his favourite chocolate bars. They cost 32p each. How many could he buy?
Answers supplied in tomorrow's post. Give yourself an extra pat on the back if you worked both answers out in your head!
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