The Blight of Chalk and Talk Teachers in Kenya

Having grown up in the United States, I had never experienced ‘lecturing’ or ‘copy exactly what I say from my notes (chalk and talk)’ until I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Namibia. When I was first exposed to this concept of memorization and lack of thinking/reasoning, not only was I chagrined, I was absolutely aware of the  unlimited amount of control one can have by not educating a population of people for 10 years.  If what you say is the end all of information, who would ever be bold enough to question you…..and if others are given a set stricture of what to know, who would possibly think there was anything more to know, especially where few books exist.

In Namibia, learners were asked to copy what the teacher said as most of the time there were no chalkboards, or there was a chalkboard but no chalk.  If a child was not an aural learner, of course they did not do well at school.  If one was not keen on memorization and wanted to know more or the bigger picture of things, they did not do well at school.   Heaven forbid a learner ask a teacher to explain – one would have the wrath of the heavens brought down on them as they were in effect, embarrassing a teacher who could no more explain what they were reading off their notes than the learner who was asking the question.

At the end of the days when I was to work with teachers and do model lessons at school, I was physically and emotionally exhausted.  The learners wanted to do what I was showing them (usually a constructivist activity) and the teachers were frustrated (more likely feeling threatened) because I was doing something so different they themselves wanted to join in as the learners did but were embarrassed because clearly I could not possibly be teaching…..the learners and myself were not ‘copying notes’ and we were having too much fun!

The ten years after Peace Corps, I was invariably exposed to new teachers in America who clung to the text book as their god given truth.  I was used to this as generally around the 3rd-5th year of teaching, a teacher is able to put the text book down and be creative.  Often, teachers in America who complete teacher training are creative and use the text as support.  Generally speaking, teachers in America, although sometimes recalcitrant, will try a little bit to do something different.

Not so in Kenya. The level of  intractability   is debilitating.  Teachers here would actually rather die than try something new in some cases.  It tends to be the teachers who received their education via chalk and talk or they are 45 + in age, similar to the phenomenon of America where older teachers are more reluctant to change.  In Kenya, the chalk and talk phenomenon is exactly what I had seen in Namibia ten years ago except that in Namibia, the teachers were at least ‘curious’ about a different way of teaching.  I have run up against teachers here who are so firmly entrenched they have to have lead in the cement holding their feet in place.

What I find most interesting is that when you want to have a conversation on educational theory and practices, these chalk and talk teachers will not even admit this is the least effective way to teach – in reality, it is possible they do not know this point.  I have been told education classes at the university level are generally hell and I am guessing this explains the overall low grades most education majors receive in their education classes – either that or the resistance to change is hell and the university professors are not able to convince their learners to step it up.

In any case, it is a tragedy as the unwillingness to change perpetuates the colonizing mentality which got these teachers to where they are today.  By not thinking, questioning, exploring, they are in fact carrying out the latent wishes of the British.

The teachers who do understand they must adapt in order to have their learners move ahead are very motivated but lack materials to make education ‘hands on’ or learner centered.  This past week I met some teachers who are incredibly talented with recyclables and had the glimmer of hope that change can occur. Who knows, Obama became President!

One Unabridged Webster’s Dictionary = Tons of Smiles and Happiness

On Friday 25 October 2009, my goods arrived from the U.S.  The majority of what I packed 3 1/2 months ago was for learners and teachers-  the largest portion being BOOKS! It is difficult to obtain books on the Continent of Africa due to the shipping costs (http://www.betterworldbooks.com/ and https://www.booksforafrica.org) so I knew I was bringing the ultimate treat.

As I was unpacking, I had to sort through what was for the school library, what is for teacher development and what were my personal books.  When I found the unabridged dictionary, I was happy- when I brought it to the school library I was even more happy, but when I saw my learners glow and look through the dictionary and ask if there really could be that many words in the English Language, my soul had been fed.

All afternoon girls were in and out of the library just going through the new books, but most of all the buzz was the giant dictionary.  I had not thought the dictionary would be the most exciting element as I had many  books for science, math, history, etc., all of which have pictures; there are novels, etc. But the dictionary reigned supreme.

Testing Squared and Then Cubed in America and Kenya

Back in the day when I was a middle school student, I absolutely loved Mad Magazine. It helped that I had a classmate (all I remember is his first name was Howard) who looked just like the face of Mad Magazine and he was equally as devilish as what was implied in the cartoons.  Mad Magazine was great at doing things that were bad and then worse as comparative realities. It was hilarious and spot on.  I would like to carry on the Mad Magazine tradition by using testing, both in America and Kenya as my comparative realities of bad then worse. I will not tell you which is bad or worse, that if for you to sort out.

First off, if you pronounce CAHSEE  (sounds like Casey)or KCSE (literally K   C  S  E), they sound similar and it confused the hell out of me when I first moved to Kenya.

Both tests are at  the minimal level of knowledge a student/learner can have, i.e. they both come in at the bottom three levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

The KCSE is structured such that only about 15-20% of Kenyan learners who take these exams obtain scores which will allow them to go to university.  The CAHSEE exam does not help students in America get into college, rather, it is the high school exit exam to demonstrate you learned something in your K-12 experiences.

Even the good teachers in Kenya copy questions from the past KCSE exam books for learners in middle and end term exams.  In America, teachers use  computer tests with scantrons to measure if students are ready for annual spring testing.

Both American and Kenyan teachers teach to the test as that is the only thing which matters.

Both American and Kenyan teachers work to complete the overwhelming and unwieldly syllabi    ’early’ to do test prep review.

In America, test scores can make or break a teacher. In Kenya, test scores can make or break a learner.

In America, the only test score(s) which matter are spring testing and where your school is on AYP.  In Kenya, the only test score which matters is the KCSE.

In Kenya and America, written out answers are not preferred as they take too long to mark when you have more than 30 students, which means that simplifying the grading process is simplifying the education process as this is not Ford Motor (oh, wait, even Ford Motor is not really Ford Motor of mass production right now).

Education is considered the most significant aspiration you can have in Kenya and America.

One country is a developing country…….

Tests, Tests, Tests and More Tests – Results??? Who Knows….

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article/article?f=/c/a/2009/09/15/MNOU19N6G8.DTL

This blog was started three weeks ago when I first captured the headlines.  I needed time to process what it was about the article that was necessarily disturbing, discomforting and revealing of how little the data in education seems to point in a meaningful direction.

At the same time this article was written, I had just begun reading the book The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, ISBN 978-0-1410-3459-1.  What I began to realize is that the test  results, while based on PAST notions of what children need to learn to be successful, are not predictive in a linear fashion of student success or even a reasonable measure of progress towards college.

If, as is pointed out in The Black Swan,  this type of data that is based on bell curve scenarios is not a quality predictive indicator, why do we persist in using it and what do we hope to obtain from the data?  If we are looking for a predictive indicator, we will most certainly be let down.  If we are looking for a measure of individual success, we will be even more let down as student learning is not linear, rather it occurs in bursts as the brain acquires enough experiences to process the over all schema.  If we are looking for qualitative measures to substantiate what we do as educators, we are applying narrative, retrospective distortion and Platonifying (over evaluating  factual information) and we will find exactly what we are seeking through interpretation.

This, in my mind, does not mean we should immediately stop all testing of students or using tests as an evaluative technique, but it should not be the exacting measure of all success or failure as indicated in the case example of Malcolm X Academy in San Francisco.   ‘

What I am understanding about myself is that I most definitely believe in Black Swans, know they exist and although we try to plan around them, realize we are victims of the perception that we can avoid what we don’t know is possible.  It is this very part of myself that quite possibly drives others crazy, much in the same way Mr. Taleb explains it in his book.

If tests are the end all of predictive value, there needs to be more than a correlation in the evidence and yet, that is all there is at this time.  I have yet to see conclusive evidence (even by the most hard core believers out there – charter schools such as KIPP and Aspire) which supports test scores translating into something such as the ability to complete/graduate college.  There are so many black swans for students who come from poverty that even the best education can not guarantee success in college – nor should that be the only outcome of an education (thank you Bill Gates). No, Bill Gates was not poor, however, he did not finish college.

There are no studies which definitively indicate a college degree will help you obtain more money during your life time, be rich, be famous, be popular.  The studies I have read indicate there is greater potentiality/possibility for some one to earn more money over their lifetime by having higher education (the higher you go, potentially the more money you can obtain).   All of this is in naught as I have close friends with a PhD who do not have the earning potential they should right now as as it is cheaper to hire a lecturer than a bona fide PhD person to place on tenure track.  I have friends who have taken a royal bath with the fall out of Wall Street even though they have an Ivy Education, including MBA degrees.  There are other friends of mine who were or had been doing moderately well except for the housing mortgage meltdown.  Most of the friends who were ensnared in this debacle would have been fine if they could wait out 10 or 15 years for the economy to right itself and housing to regain momentum instead of moving for a job.  Each item I wrote about in the last four sentences was a Black Swan none of us saw coming when we were undergrads or graduate students.

Which means, all those great grades we  (the people talked about above – and they know who they are if they are reading this blog) obtained in elementary, middle and high school, the SAT’s, GRE’s, etc. were never predictive of our success, rather all those grades and scores were predictive of our future potential.

So, my question remains, what do the results mean?  How should we use these test results to improve education? How should we deliver tests (multiple choice/written, etc.) to obtain results with more predictive value?  Can testing provide predictive value?  The questions are endless.  All I know is education has become something completely counterintuitive to what we know from Piaget, Montessori, etc.   If we really want results, we need to be more longitudinal in our thinking and cope up to the Black Swans out there which will always change the penultimate outcome of our best written and delivered lessons.

The Saga of Unemployment Ends!

I am not sure what the best fit theory is for my unemployment story, however, it has been resolved.  Suffice it to say that either leaving the contintinent expedites things or by relative comparion to a developing nation, the process seems expedited.

I was able to leave my father with Power of Attorney and he was able to navigate all the paperwork.

Where I am now, Kenya, unemployment insurance is a luxury so extravagant it does not yet exist here.  I can not imagine how I would have survived the last 5 months and yet I watch in utter amazement at the people around me who will figure out something useful in a matter of days s0 they can be part of the economy.  It is imperative for people here to be doing something as unemployment payments do not exist.

I am thankful for what America provides and hope someday Kenya will be in a position to follow our footsteps – we have the child of a native son of theirs leading our country!

Back to the Pre-Stone Age

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/09/13/philadelphia-free-li.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/25/world/africa/25safrica.html?_r=1&hpw

I am positive if America just works a teensy bit harder at it, they can be just like post apartheid S. Africa.  Picture kids in Philly protesting for a library, much like the students in the second article posted above.

For those of you who are dubious of the similarities between the two articles, consider the following:

It is more effective to control a population by denying them 10 years of education than to drop a bomb.  The bomb just randomly kills people and you may leave some smart ones behind, but if you don’t educate them, think Apartheid in S. Africa, you can control them!

So, for those of you who shun ignorance in all its permutations, including the above, please donate to below:

http://www.booksforafrica.org/

Taking Pride in Publishing and Editing Text Books

While I know some forms of technology are new or not widely accessible in many parts of Kenya, or the continent of Africa, I do know the people with access to the technology are incredibly intelligent.  To that end, I know that my teachers and other professionals I have met in Kenya understand editing and even the fact that MS Word will check your work.  I know this because there is not a ‘Kings English’ version of MS and so words such as labor/labour, center/centre, etc. end up in the ‘editing’ malfesance which must be manually corrected.

In the past couple weeks I have been helping out various teachers to type up different pieces they need for class as I apparently type fast (so fast, that people stare…..and I don’t want them sellling tickets!) and it is much more efficient (it also helps distract me from some of the more frustrating things I am dealing with right now).  One of the books I have been typing pieces from is The River Between.  The novel and questions were put together by the English Department at Moi Girls HS in Eldoret, the community I teach in.   The novel story is a wonderful piece of Kenyan literature.  The questions are thoughtful and interesting.   My issue is none of that.

My issue is that some how Apex Book Publishers (typesetting done by Jael Murgor; Patricia) was in such a hurry to ‘publish’ or sell the book (ISBN 9966-7231-2-9) that they neglected to have some one proof the copy before mass printing.  There are many reasons this is frustrating to me and should be to any educator:

(1) In one sentence the word many is written as may.  The context is such that a reasonable person would be able to realize the word should be many, however, for learners where English is the translation of the book, this type of typo may not be caught or may in fact change the meaning.   Suffice it to say this is one of many typos which I have found and I have only typed up three passages for my English Dept.

(2) There is no excuse for any book publisher to have as many errors as I have seen in three passages unless they are unprofessional or unfamiliar with the normal flow of publishing.  Since many of the book publishers here are of European extraction (i.e. came with the colonizers), this is seen by me as an insult that Kenyan’s are some how not even important enough to have proof reading done of books to be used by Kenyan Public Schools. I won’t even go into my thoughts on racism for that would be a whole other tangent/blog.

(3) It is not right that Kenyan teachers be given inferior materials to teach with – their job is already difficult.  Not only did I find errors in this book, but in the Physics KCSE. Almost every text type book I have read here has errors above and beyond the small ones I have found in the U.S. published text books.

(4) Learners should not be made to use inferior text books and then be tested on something where these typos impact them.  Again, this hits on issues of racism which I will not even address at this time, suffice it to say learners are being punished because publishing companies simply can not do the job adequately over here.

My suggestion is that publishing houses in Kenya or on the continent of Africa simply ship out the documents to be typed and proofed to another country.  Have the work done, sent back via internet or memory stick and start acting competently.  It is difficult enough to improve education with good materials.  Shoddy materials, in this case published books, are demeaning to all who come in contact with them.  These shoddy materials speak volumes not only about the publishing houses, but about the level of professionalism with which the people who run said publishing houses conduct themself.  If this shoddy quality would not be acceptable for their own children who most likely go to some posh private school, it should not be acceptable for any learner.

Remember A:/ and Formatting Floppy Disks? Me Neither

There are times when a developing country can absolutely drive you batty in ways you could not have predicted. Take the following real life situation I am dealing with.

A complete computer lab with MS Software, printer, server and dish for internet were graciously purchased for my school. The room is beautiful as well as the desks being custom built. Any school in America would be privileged to have this classroom and set up. Getting the internet up and running is a bit tricky however, that is not actually the problem. The problem is that the MS Software is the most current pre-Vista software, and the computers have CD/DVD drives.

You must really be scratching your head about what the problem might be. Think – look at the title of this blog again. Ponder just another moment. Did you figure it out? If not, read on.

I need to obtain old (read obsolete) MS software and floppy disc drives as well as floppy discs to run off the new computer so my learners can learn how to format a disc and be familiar with a floppy drive. Why? Why must I find this stuff which is outdated when I have current computers and software? I must find it because the Ministry of Education in Kenya is using a text book and syllabus which is old and has not been updated and my learners will be tested on how to format a floppy disc – something they will never again see in real life. I even talked with the computer science teacher about doing a simulation. That will not work as the learners will need to format the floppy and use it to contain their answers for the Ministry of Education Exam as the Ministry will then load the floppy into an old computer to make sure the floppy was formatted correctly and the learner typed on it.

My head no longer spins at such things. Rather I find myself wondering how long countries such as Kenya can continue to hold back the advent of modernization and move forward with education. I think back to my Peace Corps experience in Namibia. Probably one year before I arrived, there was limited, if any phone infrastructure. From the time I started until I left, Namibia became the cell phone capital of the universe and the ‘used to be’ pay phones started using cards which had an embedded pre-paid microchip which you could buy in different denominations. Talk about punctuated equilibrium (a concept in evolution). It was amazing.

Kenyans are by far the most creative, inventive people. Their adaption to technology is wonderful. They could put most Americans to embarrassment with what they have figured out to do with cell phones, etc. When given the slightest new technology, they immediately manifest it into 10 more ideas.

Why then, given these highly intelligent, creative people, should they be kept in the stone age learning about and being tested on computer components which are at The Tech Museum in Silicon Valley, CA? At times like this, I humor myself by thinking that if only stupidity were a little more painful, people would stop indulging in it.

Uh, About That Obama Speech

Upon review of the complete speech Obama will deliver while I am sleeping ( which means I will have to catch it on YouTube), I could find no content which I would want anyone, much less a student to be averted from hearing.  I am planning on sharing the speech with my teachers and learners here in Kenya and having a very frank discussion with them.  It is my greatest hope that other world leaders will step up to the plate and deliver their own education speech to their constituents. Of course in some parts of the world this could be dangerous for it would dismantle religious and male dominated power.

While I may have slightly different standards than the rest of the world, I could not find anything in the speech which could offend any group.  There was no egregious language;  there is nothing which implies any religious agenda  unless you fear knowledge as power;  there is no political agenda unless you believe controlling the uneducated masses is purposeful – the only blame being passed was collective and long overdue if you ask any historian.  Why is it America is in an education rut?  Where is a truth and reconciliation committee when you need one…….

It seems to me that there is more fear mongering amongst White Republicans than any other group as this speech clearly makes American’s OWN its business.  Within the last week, I saw democracy in America take an ugly turn with Van Johnson from Oakland, CA resigning a post merely because he spoke his own truth about the Bush Administration.  What has America become?

If the American people cannot handle controversy, I suspect many people will be more than turning over in their graves as the true Bush years are ultimately unfurled, never mind the reality of America.  I encourage anyone who has issues with Obama’s Education Speech to please read Before the Mayflower  A History of Black America by Lerone Bennett Jr.   for some perspective and enlightenment.  Knowing history is the surest way to set oneself free of misperceptions.

I am embarrassed and ashamed of my home country which has exported so much disingenuousness in the world, most especially with the Bush Administration. How do I explain to anyone the American fear about education.  The content of the speech is not at issue – it is all of the assorted issues it dredges up about American History.

The world is watching America. As much as this whole issue has the potential to be funny, the world is weeping for the adults who would deny children the right to hear a man speak  truths.

Peeking at Edjoin

For whatever reason, I got it in my head that it would be interesting to look at what positions are open in education in the U.S.  The area I am most familiar with of course is CA, so onto Edjoin.

Considering the malevolent level of unemployment, I expected Edjoin to be, well, empty of listings.  I was surprised at what I found and in equal measure concerned.  How is it in a nation where there is  actually  no limit to top flight universities, are there gaps in educating the nations children?

I compare this with the developing country I am currently in where university spots are difficult to obtain in country and you need exhorbitant amounts of money to even think of going abroad and yet education is considered the end all.

Don’t get me wrong, teacher quality is an issue in Kenya, however, one would expect this issue considering they were colonized and have only been a republic for 40-50 years (my measure of time is based not on the actual dates but the functionality of the country).  Compulsory education is only 10 years old and really, 7 – 10 for females. That being said, education is of utmost importance to this developing nation.

America is over 200 years old. California is its own nation/state (well, not in the recent economy) and yet teaching positions remain unfilled and school has started. The confusion in my mind is no longer why – I know why(which is why I left for a country where education is valued and a moral imperative), it is when will the U.S. pay teachers a wage commensurate with their skill set so they will temporarily or permanently leave the private sector?