Schooling Tropical Minds

I have been a science (biology) teacher in four countries and an education advisor in three countries.

My instincts were to facilitate learning and to encourage critical thinking but there have been times when the context demanded teacher centred chalk and talk. The lecture. This was mainly where there was no science equipment, no departmental budgets and no knowledge of, or enthusiasm for, learner centred approaches.

In Jamaica the recommended first and second year textbook was “Science for the 70s” which was designed for use in Scotland as part of a package that included worksheets and a wide range of equipment in support of individualised learning. I had been part of the team that produced the worksheets which were designed to enlighten the Scottish Education Department’s Curriculum Paper no. 7. The textbook did not stand alone. 

In Zambia there were labs and equipment but the Indian Head of Science kept the stuff locked in a cupboard in case it got broken. 

In the South Sudan there was some equipment in the central store which I managed to deliver to schools. When I was inspecting one prestigious Juba school the science teacher was explaining the Liebig Condenser. I had delivered one to the school a few weeks earlier and I saw it under his desk in the staff room. But he did not take it to class. He received his teacher training in Uganda and did not have a problem with chalk and talk.

In the South Sudan schooling used a 6-3-3 system. So I had students for three years. During the first 6 months the content was presented in a manner suited to students for whom English was a second language. I then chalk and taught Biology in a user friendly way for two years before spending the last six months teaching how to pass exams. 

Many of the students found the Biological ideas fascinating and I enjoyed teaching them. Rather than have them copy notes from the blackboard I prepared handouts with spaces for making notes. This freed up teaching time for discussion about how the various topics related to the students’ real lives. The handouts eventually became a text book complete with questions from past papers. Many of the topics that arose during discussion went into a teacher’s guide to the student text book. 

Note that in the model school which I helped to establish in the South Sudan there were many, popular, extracurricular groups supported mainly by expatriate teachers. These were aimed at establishing more student centred and contextually relevant activity. I for example promoted the Technology and Industrial Studies Group (TISG), A Tree Planting Service, and a local branch of the Wildlife Clubs of the S Sudan.

Note in passing that we had one set of buildings, one set of staff and three sets of students – morning school, afternoon school, and a Teachers’ Union school in the evening.

The idea that what is taught in school classrooms should be relevant and useful to daily life was missing. And there was little feeling for encouraging students to think for themselves. The task was to rote learn the answers to more or less predictable questions so that you can get a school certificate and thus a good office job.

In Belize we spent time figuring what the children should learn in school. The most common response from persons on the street was reading, writing, arithmetic and discipline.

BUT … there was always a good sprinkling of bright keenies in all the places where I taught - characters who listened intelligently and got kicks from asking tough questions. This included many students and also a few teachers. Many were refugees for whom the traditional way of doing things was no longer relevant - and more ‘modern’ ways were still being negotiated. 

SO … I tweaked the chalk and talk system and supported extracurricular activities But, in the end, I gave up hope of the formal education system contributing to the revolution. Schools were a main part of the problem. They reproduced rather than reformed the inequitable cultural divisions and forced people, including most teachers, into outdated patterns of thought. 

In Belize the intellectual elite was quite progressive. Moral and spiritual needs were given serious consideration and a self-awareness curriculum and lesson plan was developed for the Home Room periods in Secondary School.

In Lesotho I was part of the Secondary Education Support Project (SESP). We ran workshops dealing with leadership, management and administration of schools as a whole and of classrooms in particular. I gathered an extensive range of books and articles covering hot topics. I converted most of them into ‘one pagers’ thus making it easy to approach a topic from several different points of view. We were mentoring 25 locals for their Master degrees from the University of Bath. My subjective impression was that less than 5% were able and willing to embrace the existential crises that accompany the quest for meaning in the progressively modern and globalised world. 

So much then for schooling tropical – and temperate - minds.