Time to Think

These days at the beach have been restful, even retreat-like. I've managed to read a lot, to sleep a little more than usual. But they have also provided me a chance to really think about some short-term and long-term issues facing SPCHS and OLQP.

I have been thinking in particular about Loyola Teachers College and just what a difference this could make for the TZ. I'm very thankful to my friend Professor Vicki Graf (who recently visited us) for an an article she sent me that confirms not only my concerns about the present state of things here but also some of my initial thoughts about what's to be done relative to teacher education.

But I've also spent time thinking about how it is I can help our present teachers imagine different ways of being in the classroom, imagine different ways for their students to be in the classroom. That is a more immediate and more pressing concern -- and not an easy one. I think having teachers here who could model different possibilities would be a tremendous help, and I'm hoping the imminent arrival of a volunteer professionally trained as a mathematics teacher might be a good start. I'm also thankful for the kind offer of JP Morrison, the headmaster of St. Ignatius College, Enfield, London, UK, to have some of his best teachers come during the time the students from his school are here so that they could provide demonstration lessons.

It is hard for people to change without models for such. As I used to tell folks in my leadership classes, change for teachers is analogous to 19th century America -- no settler would leave the comforts of, say, Albany to settle in the West until the trailblazers had trailblazed and the pioneers had pioneered and a certain number of trustworthy settlers had settled and had written accounts assuring those they'd left behind in Albany that it was all worth the risk. I have to figure out a way to do this for our teachers, who for the most part are content with providing instruction the way it is customarily done here. And what does a typical classroom presently look like in TZ? According to a recent UNICEF study, something like this:

Teacher-directed activities (explaining, question and answer, writing on the chalk board, reading to the class, asking pupils to read, lesson summary) took up over half (55%) of the lesson time. Individual seatwork, where pupils worked on exercises from the chalkboard or textbooks and teachers marked the exercises, accounted for 25% of the lesson time. More pupil-centred forms of learning (i.e. paired or group work, pupil demonstration) accounted for just 14% of the lesson time, with paired/group work making up 6% of the lesson time. Non-curricular activities (i.e. administration, no teaching activity taking place) took up a further 6% of the time.

Obviously something must be done.