Spring 2012
The Talking Drum Newsletter read. learn. live.
It’s All About the Learning By Scott Walter, Executive Director, CODE
The inspiration that absolutely everyone, regardless of who they are or where they live, should be allowed to realize their right to a quality, basic education was first agreed upon by the global community in 1990 for achievement by 2000. It made sense: after all, education affects every aspect of human development. It empowers, enriches, facilitates long-term health benefits and is the key to human rights, self-expression and civic engagement. Regrettably, despite the universal advantages, the millennium date slipped by without much change. So, the world reconvened and collectively recommitted to the ideal and with that, set a new target of 2015 for achievement.1 With that date just around the corner (and the knowledge that the world will again miss the target) it’s critical we reflect on progress, to not only ensure we’re headed in the right direction, but that it is in fact a meaningful journey. To this end, our attention should be squarely focused on the quality of education and the most basic of questions: are children learning? Are students leaving school with the ability to read and write, to think for themselves and to problem-solve? In other words, are they equipped with the real-life skills they’ll need to fully participate in society as adults? Unfortunately, in too many countries of the world, while great progress has been made in putting millions more children into school, far too many are leaving what is likely their one and only opportunity for a formal education, without the hard skills they need to benefit themselves, their families and their communities. And that’s why CODE places such importance on the expertise, capacity and resources needed to make sure students have the chance to become readers and writers and life-long learners. Our approach is that of a comprehensive readership initiative, or Reading CODE, which combines sustained access to interesting books that are relevant to the readers and written in languages the readers understand, with meaningful engagement with those books through high quality teaching. To implement the approach, we rely first and foremost on the expertise and experience of our local partners. We also work with a vast network of recognized experts in fields such as literacy, teacher education and publishing who generously share their time and knowledge with the CODE network. Thanks to the support from our donors and the Canadian International Development Agency, they participate in many aspects of our work, including the evaluation of programs and the professional development that is offered to teachers, writers, librarians and publishers in the countries where we work. In this issue of Ngoma, we have turned to some of our expert volunteers and asked them to share their views about everything from the status of education in the developing world to issues such as teacher development, gender pedagogy, literature for children and youth, as well as the realities facing teachers and students in post-conflict countries. I hope that their insights will give you a better understanding of the great accomplishments that have been made in education in the developing world over the last decade, but also of the many challenges that CODE and the entire international development community will be working hard to address during the next decade. 1
Goals were set by both the United Nations (Millennium Development Goals) and UNESCO (Education for All).
Students at a CODE-supported primary school in Kenya.
CONTENTS It’s All About the Learning
P1
Reflections on Teacher P2 Development for Early Literacy Education in Africa Community Based Writing as Literacy Resources in Post-Conflict Education
P3
“ What’s good for girls . . .“ : A Rationale for Active, Responsive, Gender-Fair Pedagogy
P4
Improving Girls’ Education in Mozambique
P5
The Importance of Writing for Young People
P6
Providing a Sense of Place Through Books
P7
2 Reflections on Teacher Development for Early Literacy Education in Africa
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What writing materials and instruments (blank exercise books, pencils, chalk ) are available to the teacher and pupils?
By Dr. Michelle Commeyras, University of Georgia
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Is there room for the teacher to move among students to show illustrations when reading aloud from a children’s book?
For a long time, literacy education development programs and projects in Africa targeted adults who may never have attended school or left school at a young age. In the last decade —with the establishment of UNESCO’s Education for All goals for 2015 and more and more children having access to education — literacy education has become a concern for primary and secondary schools with the realization that pupils are not acquiring the reading and writing abilities needed to pursue tertiary education and contribute, among other things, to economic development. When it comes to providing quality literacy education, there is one factor that has been found to be of utmost importance: the teacher. In order to effectively teach their students to read and write, teachers need to develop skills in using instructional methods that are grounded in the vast amount of research on education for reading and writing. This is why there are many projects underway in Africa, including those involving CODE, to improve the quality of literacy instruction, particularly in primary schools. I have been fortunate to be an expert literacy volunteer for CODE in Kenya and Sierra Leone. Thus far, I have made five trips to Kenya and three trips to Sierra Leone. In both countries my involvement has been in two capacities. The first has been to design and facilitate workshops with other volunteers to prepare people who will in turn teach workshops for primary school teachers. The second has been to provide support during the workshops for the teachers. My experience has taught me many things. First, when developing a workshop, one must always keep in mind the realities of the teachers’ classrooms. In many countries where CODE works, resources available to teachers are very limited. Here are some of the questions that have been of great concern to me in planning teacher development workshops:
• Does the physical size and layout of the classroom have space for literacy centers and other small group work or is the teacher limited to whole class instruction? Secondly, it is essential that the decision-makers from outside the schools be involved in teacher development. For example, for the workshops held as part of Reading Kenya, it has been important to have the Ministry of Education’s Area Education Officers involved because they have been able to ensure that teachers receiving the training were not transferred to schools outside the project. In one case, the Area Education Officer attended the three initial workshops for trainers and the three subsequent workshops for 90 teachers. Also in Kenya, we had two quality assurance officers from the Ministry of Education attend the Train the Trainer workshops. Their presence was important because they go to the schools to conduct evaluations. In their role as evaluators, they need to know what new teaching methodologies and materials are being introduced. Lastly, for teacher development to be a success, I think it is crucial that there be ongoing support A teacher uses a big book in a to teachers classroom in Ghana. and their head masters between workshops. Providing an interactive workshop with opportunities to try out new methods of teaching is a starting point. Those are seeds that will only grow roots in classrooms and schools if someone with expertise comes on a regular basis to work side by side with teachers and pupils Continued on Page 3.
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on how to implement the new teaching methods. This is a big challenge for financial and logistical reasons. CODE will continue to work with donors and governments to create these essential opportunities. Dr. Michelle Commeyras is professor of language and literacy education at the University of Georgia. Over the last year, she has run five three-day teacher development workshops for CODE in Kenya and Sierra Leone. Teacher development
is an essential part of Reading CODE, a comprehensive readership initiative developed by CODE that works with local teachers, librarians, writers, and publishers to support and sustain the development of literacy learning in schools from kindergarten to Grade 12. For more information about Reading CODE, visit www.codecan.org/our-programs/international-programs/ reading-code
Community Based Writing as Literacy Resources in Post-Conflict Education
but could be generated from within, as an assertion of identity. The sharing of the texts was celebratory, even when they told of distressing events:
By George Hunt, University of Edinburgh
“My friend is now somewhere in the Land of the Dead; and as this exercise has made me recall him, may he rest in peace. I give thanks.”
I first visited Liberia with Charlie Temple in July 2007 to run a workshop under the auspices of Critical Thinking International (CTI). On the first morning, I told the story of a young, destitute and childless husband who is granted a single wish after helping a wise woman. The catch is that he has to make it before midnight. He longs to be rich, but his blind father demands that he wish for the restoration of his sight, while his wife begs that he wish for a child. They are still arguing about it as the hands of the clock begin to close upon midnight. I won’t spoil the story by telling you the ending, but it is all to do with resourcefulness, a quality that loomed large in various ways during the week that followed. The workshop was for primary and secondary educators, aimed at developing teaching methods that would support critical thinking, the production of text, and the use of writing for learning. We were expecting 30 participants and 60 arrived. Like every other educational institution in the country, the school that hosted us had suffered during fifteen years of civil war. Our equipment consisted of a blistered blackboard and a handful of chalk crumbs. Like the young man in the story, we had to be resourceful in order to achieve our several aims. We attempted this by eliciting the resources that lay in the personal and community experiences of our participants. Through the use of discussion activities and simple writing frames based on oral traditions, fiction, autobiography and family and social issues, the participants became authors. Some of the memories and reflections that informed the texts created that week reflected the appalling experiences of the war, but many more were about achievement, resilience and friendship. The educators began to realise that literacy resources for their depleted classrooms did not have to come exclusively from outside the community, as a form of aid,
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Amongst the participants were Michael and Yvonne Weah of the WE-CARE Foundation, who had been providing reading material, and a secure place to read, for the children of Monrovia throughout the war. They had begun to work with the Liberian Writers Group on the production of books that would be culturally relevant and engaging for young learners. With the involvement of CODE, CTI and the International Board on Books for Young People – Canada, this initiative grew into Reading Liberia, at the core of which is a set of stories written, illustrated, published and cared for by Liberians, reflecting the challenges and rewards facing children and families in the country today. To develop Reading Liberia, CODE also used its experience working with the Children’s Book Project for Tanzania, a program supported by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). The program also includes a teacher-training strand aimed at ensuring that the reading materials are enjoyed in thoughtprovoking and interactive ways. When CODE and CTI introduced a similar program to Sierra Leone last year, we used the Liberian stories to demonstrate these teaching strategies, but also to exemplify how an authentic literature can be created. Alongside the use of the stories, we also encouraged the Sierra Leone educators to create their own materials using the similar techniques to those used in Liberia. The outcomes ranged from children’s stories developed from rhythmic templates to a multilanguage collection of lullabies, children’s chants and some rather earthy proverbs: “If the hat complains about the fart, what about the underwear?”
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Authors’ and artists’ workshops were held in conjunction with the teacher-training sessions, and work is now in progress to create the first books for Reading Sierra Leone. As in the folk tale, the family of educators, writers, illustrators and librarians involved in post-conflict literacy work are challenged by a multiplicity of competing needs. Schools need simple patterned texts for readers of all ages who are at the earliest stages. They need non-fiction resources, a greater variety of genres, a wealth of books and other types of text that reflect the world beyond the countries themselves. It would be romantic to imagine that all that any nation needs to create a reading culture can be generated from within, but the
voices of the learners and of their communities is surely the most sustainable foundation for literacy, and it is particularly important that these voices be heard in situations where injustice and impoverishment have hitherto silenced them. Perhaps this can be expressed as the language-experience converse of CODE’s assertion, ‘If you can learn to read and write, you can learn to do and be anything’: All that you have done and been, and are now, can help you learn to read and write. George Hunt is a Lecturer in Literacy and Education at the University of Edinburgh. He joined CODE as a lead trainer for Reading Sierra Leone in 2011.
“What’s good for girls . . . “ : A Rationale for Active, Responsive, Gender-Fair Pedagogy By Dr. Alison Preece, University of Victoria One key to success in school, or even to staying in school, is a sense of belonging. Essential to belonging is a feeling of ‘fit’: knowing that your experiences, values and daily realities are understood and that your aspirations are deemed legitimate and supported by your teachers and (at least some of) your peers. Central to shaping such a sense of fit is the opportunity to ‘see yourself’ — both as you now are and as you want to be — in all of the many and various aspects of the day-to-day experiences that constitute school, such as the content covered, the materials presented, the issues discussed, and the books read. Educators have long championed the need for gender-fair curricular materials in which girls and young women are represented as able, competent, and capable of playing a full range of roles equivalent in value to those assumed by young males. Such materials enhance the likelihood that both boys and girls will grow and develop un-stunted by prevailing and unchallenged stereotypes. Such materials are vital to equitable schooling for all learners, but particularly for girls.
More recently, but no less urgently, and for similar reasons, educators world-wide have argued persuasively for the adoption of culturally-fair, appreciatively informed curricular materials that richly represent the diversities that shape identity — both individual and cultural. Our students, no matter where in the world they attend school, no matter their background, gender, situation, or culture, need to see themselves empathetically framed in the images and materials projected and endorsed by their schools. They need to feel those images are fair and fitting, that they expand rather than limit identities and possibilities, and that they reflect a worldview they can access and embrace. Schools need to offer space to belong...particularly for girls. A number of admirable initiatives have been undertaken by NGOs and international program developers to support local efforts to create engaging, high-quality, culturally-attuned reading materials that consciously align with equity goals, but which, first and foremost, honor the integrity and vitality Continued on Page 5.
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of the story. The recently launched Reading Liberia story books, published as part of a collaborative initiative between the WE-CARE Foundation and CODE, and written and illustrated by emerging Liberian authors (most of whom had never written for children before) definitely deserve the spotlight here. The response to this first set of eight books — by students, by their teachers, by educators scattered across the globe — has affirmed more powerfully than any theoretical argument just how sorely such materials are needed, how hungry learners are for them, how impoverished schooling is without them. CODE, with support from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), has also worked with partners in Ethiopia, Mozambique and Senegal to publish books featuring female characters that can be role models.
Improving Girls’ Education in Mozambique By Hila Olyan, Program Officer, CODE Improving girls’ education is a priority for CODE and our Mozambican partner Associação Progresso. Through
Provision of such materials is a crucial first step. However, principals and teachers need to be supported in their efforts to use them effectively. While reading such books to students can accomplish a great deal (and is often the only option in over-crowded classrooms where a single copy is all that is available), much more is achieved if students are actively engaged before, during, and after the reading. Simple strategies such as being invited to whisper to a seatmate what they think will happen next, what should happen, won’t happen, and how they feel about it, can powerfully and simultaneously involve all of the students. Further, students are expected to express and justify in their own words their own interpretations, and via that process, a powerful implicit message is communicated about the right to have one’s own viewpoint with the accompanying responsibility to reasonably account for it. There is nothing trivial about such learning; the possibility of an open society depends on it. A level playing field requires it.
our six-year Canadian International
Without question, girls need exposure to books with which they can connect and identify. So do boys. So do teachers. Learners need time and many thoughtfully structured opportunities to talk about, talk through, talk over, what they are reading and learning. So do teachers. It is always a wise investment to provide teachers with supportive opportunities to learn how to imaginatively and actively engage their students with such books. Provision of gender-fair, culturally informed materials is a key first step… but in order to run, learners need teachers who can engage them. Active pedagogy lies at the very heart of equitable education... for all learners.
and boys in classroom initiatives, and
Dr. Alison Preece is a Professor of Language and Literacy, and the Associate Dean, Teacher Education, at the University of Victoria. She has worked with CODE as an expert volunteer in Liberia, where she ran teacher development workshops as part of Reading Liberia, an initiative based on CODE’s Reading CODE literacy development model which aims to create and support literacy in Liberia by engaging children through reading, writing and learning to improve their lives.
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Development Agency (CIDA) funded program called Promotion of a Literate Environment in Mozambique(PLEM), our organizations are working together to lower dropout rates and increase the performance of students —and especially girls —in the northern provinces of Cabo Delgado and Niassa. In order to improve the quality and relevance of education, including girls’ education, we produce books and magazines that routinely promote positive gender roles, highlight during teacher training workshops the importance of involving both girls encourage girls to play an active role in classroom discussions. Data collected by the Ministry of Education in Mozambique, as well as by experts working with Associação Progresso, indicate that our work is making a difference. The grade 5 examination pass rate for girls in the northern provinces now exceeds the Mozambican average for both girls and boys. Dropout rates have decreased, especially in the early grades. In 2010, the grade two girls’ dropout rate dropped below boys in both the Portuguese and Bilingual Education streams. There are also increasing numbers of female teachers in schools. Though these improvements cannot be attributed to PLEM alone, there has been important progress in girls’ education and we can continue to influence further improvement to girls’ education experiences.
CODE • Sping 2012
6 The Importance of Writing for Young People
In my role as a jury member for the Burt Award for African Literature — Kenya, I read 185 manuscripts. When I finished my work for CODE, I visited an orphanage in a village southeast of Nairobi By Sharon Jennings and saw firsthand the way of life described in these manuscripts. To my eye, it wasn’t an easy existence, but I also witnessed the I recently gave a speech at Trent University and was asked to tremendous determination by the schools and churches to provide address the students’ belief that books for young people should be young people with an education and a fighting chance to make ‘good for them’, imparting didactic lessons on how adults want kids a difference in their world. I also observed something else: I had to behave. It was amusing, because none of these students had brought a suitcase of award-winning Canadian books with me, each ever read anything of the kind in their lives; books of that ilk do not one about abandoned get published in North children surviving horrific America— they will situations – in Uganda, not sell. Sierra Leone, South I delivered the same Africa, and Afghanistan message in Kenya last and Guatemala, as well. November when I ran Ten suitcases would writing workshops for not have been enough! authors interested in My esteemed jury submitting manuscripts colleagues wanted the for the Burt Award books for teaching; the for African Literature. workshop attendees This time, however, wanted models to the members of my learn from for next audience did grow year’s award; and the up with didactic texts children...The children and were at a loss to rushed through their understand why books chores and lessons and Teenage boys enjoy reading at a community library in Malawi. for kids would get hurried off to quiet spots published if they did not tell young people how to behave. I read to devour books about other kids who turned out to be just like an excerpt from one of my picture books about two little boys who, themselves, heartbreakingly so in many cases. after dropping a pie on the floor, scoop it up and offer the adults The message I hope I left behind: why should I bring Canadian a pudding. I explained that these children created a problem but books about African stories to Africa? The stories are yours to solved it. A woman in the class was quite adamant: “Your book is write, and the Burt Award for African Literature may inspire you wanting. Those boys should have been caught and punished.” My to do just that. response was that she saw the story from the adult perspective, whereas I was writing from the child’s. Sharon Jennings has written over sixty books for young people. She is part of the International Board on Books for Young PeopleDuring the workshops I was met with many such challenges. Canada. As part of the jury for the Burt Award for African Literature The purpose of the Burt Award for African Literature is to encourage – Kenya, she ran writing workshops and participated in the selection the writing of books for young people, and yet one man informed of the winners of the first round for this country. The Burt Award me that kids should be reading “proper” adult literature. However, for African Literature is a literary prize that recognizes excellence adult books don’t reflect a child’s view of the world and will in young adult fiction from Africa. Sponsored by CODE and made not resonate. But when we allow even the youngest readers to possible by the generosity of Canadian philanthropist William learn that books are about kids and show kids confronting and Burt and the Literary Prizes Foundation, the award addresses overcoming problems, children learn that like the hero in the book, an ongoing shortage of relevant books for young people while they can be courageous and wise and compassionate, that they, promoting a love of reading. It is currently presented in Ethiopia, too, can struggle and grow. A child who finds a book fascinating Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania. becomes a lifelong reader, and a society of lifelong readers is a successful one.
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For more information about the Burt Award for African Literature, visit www.codecan.org/get-involved/burt-award
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7 Providing a Sense of Place Through Books By Dr. Charles Temple, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
“Our young people need patriotism.” That’s how Sister Mary Laurene Brown, a college president in Monrovia, Liberia, put it. As she spoke, she made clearer what she meant by “patriotism.” Canadians know how troubling it is to have your children constantly reading books, listening to music, and watching TV shows and movies that originate beyond your borders. But for people living in Africa, as Sister Mary explained, the effect can be downright schizophrenic—people tuning into the popular media from Europe and North America, can feel like aliens in their own land. Sister Mary wanted books for young people about the local culture, books that celebrate life in post-conflict West Africa and explore its problems and possibilities. Her request was answered in 2008 with the establishment of CODE’s Reading Liberia project. Reading Liberia is a collaborative initiative between the WE-CARE Foundation of Liberia and CODE which is creating and supporting a thinking, literate Liberia by engaging children through reading, writing and learning to improve their lives. CODE’s work with authors and illustrators has focused on turning out excellent books rooted firmly in local settings. Those books should be familiar and inviting to young readers, and should remind them that they live in a real place. Because CODE promotes thoughtful reading too, the books should present slices of life as young people are living it, and should encourage young readers to think and talk about their lives, their societies, their options. Such books will encourage patriotism, in Sister Mary’s words. But you might prefer to call it a sense of place. The writing workshops provided by CODE as part of the initiative sometimes begin with a prompt based on a successful children’s book. For example, Cynthia Rylant’s When I Was Young in the Mountains, stitches together a series of reminiscences on a former time. Reading Liberia author Elfreda Johnson used the pattern to create Living With Mama in the Village and beautifully captured her memories of rural life in Liberia—life that is now remote from so many children who have moved to the city because of the war.
Leonean author Mohamed Sheriff. It’s about an orphan girl, her arm amputated by rebels, who is given shelter by a grandmother, only to arouse the jealousy of the grandson of the same age. Brandy and Millie Wolova took off from that pattern to create The Palm Cabbage Party, another one of the first eight titles in the Reading Liberia collection. Their story situated the problem of repaying a kindness against the backdrop of the war. A refugee family has been taken in by a family in a village far from their home, but people in their adopted village are forced to starvation when that village is besieged by rebels. Then, the refugee family saves the day by recognizing a source of A big book in Chichewa, food growing in the forest around a local language of Malawi, published as part of the Pan-African their new village. Of course, more goes into the workshops than prompts: much writing, discussing, critiquing, and rewriting. And soon, the work moves beyond prompts and examples as writers and artists create wonderful works from their own imaginations. One story at a time, Liberians are slowly rebuilding that sense of self Sister Mary called “patriotism.”
Publishing Project, a partnership between CODE and the International Book Bank.
Over the last four years, Dr. Charles Temple has been working with CODE as a volunteer expert for the Reading Liberia and Reading Sierra Leone programs, among others. Through numerous workshops, he has helped local authors to produce books that engage children of all ages and reading levels. Temple is also the author and co-author of numerous text books. In addition to his teaching duties at Hobart and William Smith Colleges (www.hws.edu), he co-founded the Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking (RWCT) Project, in association with the International Reading Association and currently codirects Critical Thinking International (www.criticalthinkinginternational.org).
Another prompt was to think of everyday issues that children of the audience’s age might have, and then create a story by superimposing that smaller issue against the background of a bigger one. Our example was Mayama Must Go!, by Sierra
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CODE • Sping 2012
8 Country Partners
(Senegal)
(Liberia)
(Mozambique)
If you can learn to read and write, you can learn to do, and be, anything. Visit us online at codecan.org
CODE 321 Chapel Street Ottawa, Ontario K1N 7Z2 toll-free 1 800 661 2633 t. 613 232 3569 f. 613 232 7435 codehq@codecan.org
Ngoma, or “Talking Drum” in Kiswahili, is the official newsletter of CODE, formerly the Canadian Organization for Development through Education. CODE is a charitable, non-governmental organization that supports literacy projects in developing countries. Published in English and French twice a year, Ngoma is distributed to CODE supporters in Canada and abroad.
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